The Stranger Meursault Character Traits
James Kim Mrs. Natalia Grade: 9 2018.05.24 Character Analysis of Meursault in The Stranger One of the significant characters in Albert Camus’ short story, The Stranger is Meursault. Detachment and lack of emotion are the main traits of Meursault’s personality. Meursault is a character who is detached and unemotional as he is insensitive of everything that happens around him. Indeed, he disassembles the world around him as an ‘outsider’. This is shown in his mother’s death, phycological view of life and death, and prominent symbols in The Stranger which allows the readers to understand the circumstances where he finds himself at, where he belongs in and Meursault’s lack of emotions. These deep themes are closely connected to the development of Meursault’s indifference, alienation, oddity, and uniqueness. One of the important theme in The Stranger is Meursault’s emotional indifference to his mother’s death. For the majority of people, the death of the mother signifies sadness. However, Meursault keeps himself aloof and has a view from a different standpoint about his mother’s death. Meursault said, “Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don’t know. I …show more content…
First, the sun becomes one of the most important symbols in The Stranger. “The whole beach, throbbing in the sun, was pressing on my back. But. He would have left, but the sun was too intense. The sun [makes him] move toward the spring (and therefore, toward the Arab).” Sun sets the stage got the climax of Meursault’s murder of the Arab. Sun is depicted as a distraction to Meursault and causes him to do things he would not normally do, causing him to commit a serious crime which will cause him death penalty. Another significant symbol in The Stranger is ‘outsider’. Meursault is a person who does not belong to the society. Meursault is a character who is detached and unemotional as he is insensitive of everything as an
Albert Camus The Stranger
1353 Words | 6 PagesThose who don’t know their purpose may feel that their daily lives are ridiculous. Camus’ The Stranger, portrays an inexplicably nonsensical character, Meursault, who winds up in a unanticipated situation. Similar to real life struggles, the character perpetually repeats insignificant actions not accordant to any essence.
Albert Camus 'The Stranger'
433 Words | 2 PagesClose Reading - The Stranger In The Stranger, Albert Camus depicts a man, Meursault, who is emotionless to the situations that surround him. After committing a murder, he gets put on trial and is deemed as a danger to society, and therefore, gets sentenced to a death sentence. However, this decision was not made due to rational reasons but from false accusations on Meursault’s character and motives. In the passage, Camus uses point of view to portray how the people in the courtroom perceived Meursault the way they wanted him to act.
Idiocrasy: Meursault And The Sun
462 Words | 2 PagesAnd secondly, Meursault reaction when he constantly pays attention to the sun 's rays. Meursault is this physical substance that is totally distinct from human mind, emotions, desire, and spirituality. The sun or the heat portrayed in “The Stranger” is the symbol of emotions and feeling that Meursault ego struggle to deal with. The sun is overpowering force that bears down Meursault and his different view of
Diction In The Stranger
932 Words | 4 PagesAs Meursault perceives life contains no meaning, he is a hollow man who can not see the reality of life. He is much ignorant and lives in the present. “whole landscape shimmer with heat, it was inhumane and oppressive”(Camus 15).The sun represents the intimidating power of the natural worlds over human action. The sun is not repeated once, but many times during the funeral, which distracts Meursault’s attention and prevails the emotions, Meursault is unable to deal with himself. The sun is also the driving force, which makes Meursault murder the Arab man at the beach.
Meaning Of Life In The Death Of Ivan Ilyich
822 Words | 4 PagesCamus outlines this argument in The Stranger through the nihilistic anti-hero Meursault. Throughout the novel, Meursault exhibits very little emotion, which only filters into the protagonist’s stream of consciousness when he expresses physical discomfort or social frustration. The detachment from the world around him makes him a case study for one’s personal quest to find his/her own purpose. Camus’s secular approach deviated from contemporary understanding and challenged the existentialist and religious ideologies that preceded
Joseph Campbell's 17 Stages: A Literary Analysis
133 Words | 1 PagesThe Stranger has a similar plot as Meursault, the protagonist, is viewed negatively
Meursault's Emotions In The Stranger, By Albert Camus
724 Words | 3 PagesThe Stranger, written by Albert Camus, It follows the story of our tragic hero, Meursault, shortly after his mother dies through the events that lead to him being sentenced to death. Camus uses the motif of weather to express Meursault’s emotions. The Stranger shows how even when a person does not explicitly express emotion they are shown in some way. How emotions are expressed is a window to a person's personality. I will first discuss how Meursault appears emotionless, than how Camus uses the motif of weather to express Meursault’s emotions for him and lastly what impact this makes.
The Stranger Character Analysis
1437 Words | 6 PagesMeursault also strays from the morals society has imposed; he does not see a difference between bad and good; he merely observes without judging. However, when Meursault kills an Arab, he is brutally judged for the aspects that make him unique. In the second part of the novel, as the trial
Bonner's The Stranger
138 Words | 1 PagesA notable political philosopher Stephen Eric Bonner, concerns with the notion of meaning in a meaningless world in the novel “The Stranger”. The hypocritical moralism of the society in reflected in the trial of Meursault where a “divorce” occurs between the objective and subjective reasons for the judgement offered by the Jury. Truth disappears, therein lies the absurdity of existence. Meursault is a stranger to himself and to the society that does not understand him. Bonner shows “The Stranger” as a testament to the absurdity of life than a reaction against it, a modern form of the educational novel.
The Theme Of Morality In Albert Camus The Outsider
946 Words | 4 PagesAlbert Camus’ The Outsider is a strangely complicated noir fiction novel with a relatively simple plot that attempts to depict Camus’ philosophy of the absurd through the seemingly emotionally stunted main character, Meursault. The Outsider begins with the death of Meursault’s mother and deals with relationship dynamic of his encounters with his neighbors, his boss, his friends, and his lover. His unique outlook on life eventually culminates in the murder of a stranger and consequently his death sentence. Camus ultimately tries to portray the depraved morality of the world and the fabricated rationale society attempts to imposes on the irrational universe. Camus implies that morality and motive have a direct relationship with one another and that there are arbitrary evils
Extended Metaphor In The Stranger
1241 Words | 5 PagesThe Stranger written by Albert Camus, gives the reader an insight in the life of Meursault and his family and friends, but also has a hidden moral behind it. In “The Stranger”, Camus uses metaphor to describe the relationship between Meursault and his mother. The assumptions people make has a chance of being right or wrong, but Camus uses Salamano and his dog as an extended metaphor to show that even though everyone believed that Meursault did not care about his mother, he in fact he did care about his mother, and it was the same situation with Salamano and his dog. Meursault had an estranged relationship with his mother. They did not have that tender mother-son relationship, because when they lived together they hardly had any communication between them, living completely separate lives while still living in the same house.
Meursault's Characters And Villains In The Stranger By Albert Camus
901 Words | 4 PagesVillains often play a vital role in contrasting the protagonists, which brings upon sympathy towards the protagonists. In The Stranger by Albert Camus, society directly criticizes Meursault 's actions and beliefs, evoking Meursault 's sadness in the story. While in The Meursault Investigation, Merault is the antagonist of the story because he kills Musa, Harun’s brother. Meursault indirectly provokes Harun’s anger and fuels his ambition for his actions. Both stories present villains differently, where society is directly criticizing Meursault’s beliefs and actions in The Stranger while Meursault is indirectly hurting Harun in The Meursault Investigation.
Existentialism And Absurdism In The Stranger, By Albert Camus
1021 Words | 5 PagesIn his novel The Stranger, Albert Camus creates an emotionally incapable, narcissistic, and, at times, sociopathic character named Meursault to explore and expose his philosophies of Existentialism and Absurdism. Throughout the story Meursault follows a philosophical arc that, while somewhat extreme - from unemotional and passive to detached and reckless to self-reflective - both criticizes the dependent nature of human existence and shows the journey through the absurd that is our world. In the onset of The Stranger, following his mother’s death, Meursault acts with close to utter indifference and detachment. While the rest of “maman’s”(9) loved ones express their overwhelming grief, Meursault remains unphased and, at times, annoyed at their
The Themes Of Death In Meursault's The Stranger
1232 Words | 5 PagesThe themes of death explored using absurdism in The Stranger is shown with a general disregard for death by Meursault and the strange way he sees life based on these existentialist views. The Stranger is a perfect example of an existentialist novel that was written for that time period, as during this time around the area of France and Europe there was an existentialist movement that Albert Camus, the author, was involved in.
The Importance Of Existence In The Stranger By Albert Camus
1491 Words | 6 PagesThat does not mean anything. It may have been yesterday” (Camus 9). These are the starting line of the Stranger and it has a great impact on Meursault throughout the novel, which symbolizes the beginning, middle, and end of the novel, they are in the manner with his behavior towards life and how he sees the world in a different view than everybody else, Meursault is detached from his mother’s death, he does not show that he is hurt by it at all, he does not care about his personal issues. Instead, he cares about the unchanged world he is living in.
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