Meursault's Apathy

Meursault is eventually convicted and sentenced to death because of his inability to conform to the societal expectations of French Algeria in the 1940’s. 3. Characters: Meursault- the protagonist and narrator of the novel, Meursault is a young shipping clerk who has detached himself from the world around him. He is indifferent

The battle for existence is what drives Meursault to connect more to the physical world. In The Stranger by Albert Camus, there’s a young, detached man named Meursault living in French Algiers. At the beginning of the novel, Meursault receives a telegram, which informs him of his mother’s death. He acts calm during and after the funeral and frolics around with his girlfriend, Marie. While on the beach with his friends, they are suddenly confronted by Arabs and get into a fight.

During his own mother’s funeral at the beginning of the book, Meursault shows both antisocial behavior as well as a lack of sadness for her death. After being asleep for a while and finally waking up, Meursault notices a man near him, “…he was staring hard at me, as if he had been waiting for me to wake. Then I fell asleep again” (Camus 11). After he is sentenced to death, Meursault never feels guilt for killing the man. When he is nearing his execution date, all he hopes for is “that on the day of my execution there should be a huge crowd of spectators and that they should greet me with cries of hate” (Camus 117).

One of the most important passages within the novel is when Meursault repeatedly defies the chaplain in the cell. It serves as a pinnacle for the entire story, and grants readers a look into the main characters state of mind. In this passage, Meursault comes to a dramatic realization of who he is through an existential epiphany, and with thorough analysis the overall significance of the passage to the story is revealed. In the passage the chaplain visits Meursault much to Meursault’s displeasure.

Due to Hamlet’s actions, he lacks meaningful relationships and alienates all that could have saved him and would have pulled him from his insanity. Meursault in Albert Camus’ The Stranger shares a similar predicament. Meursault is an incredibly isolated individual, separating himself from his lover, Marie, his small circle of friends, his mother, and eventually, society and human reason itself. By building his isolation, Meursault creates a lonely life with little purpose.

According to Jane Addams “The essence of immorality is the tendency to make an exception of myself”. In The Stranger by Albert Camus, he examines the immortality of man; therefore social constructs are unreliable. Social constructs are changed when Meursault does not cry at his mom’s funeral, when he shows no sign of affection when Marie asked him to marry her, and when he has no remorse for killing the Arab. Thus, Camus examines in the novel, The Stranger, what happens to society and the people within it when people do not care.

Introduction: In the novel The stranger, written by Albert Camus Meursault kills a man, “The Arab” in act of self defense. After Meursault is put to trial, his lawyer becomes more focused on Meursault's attitude and believes. When meursault mother died, he had a very unemotional attitude, which causes problems later on in his trail. He is later sentence to the death penalty.

Overall he leads an indifferent life which results in poor and meaningless relationships with people such as his mother, girlfriend, and neighbours. Meursault lacks emotion and compassion, because of this he doesn’t react to anything negative in his life and remains

The man behind the book, Meursault, has had many ups and downs throughout his times in this book. Living a very basic life in Algiers practically all nice and calm, until the call of his mother's death, where everything simply rolls down hill becoming bad and worse. Meursault lived as an everyday upstanding member of society, slowly his destiny catches up to him and he is soon brought face to face with his untimely execution. He never did anything particularly vile or wrongdoing to make such a dark fate be bestowed upon him, but the action of murder is something a little over the top- karma came full circle and, because of his actions, he was condemned to death. I personally believe, in the moment of the kill that Meursault committed, he mentally accepted any consequence that came his way.

Meursault constantly has varying thoughts dancing around his mind, one of which is the environment. The environment is behind all of Meursault’s struggles and problems in his mental world and interferes with his physical world as well, causing him to think that the world is irrational. Holden’s attitude toward the world is particularly similar to Meursault’s because nihilism and absurdism are quite similar. Both believe that the world is irrational and out to get them. The only difference between the two is that Meursault discovers that even though he believes that the world manipulated him and demanded to kill the

Or yesterday maybe, I don’t know. I got a telegram from the home: ‘Mother deceased. Funeral Tomorrow. Faithfully yours.’ That doesn’t mean anything.

What if life contributed to no meaning and the only point which matters is the existence happening during the present? To make things worse, as humans live, they breath, but as they die a salvation is received to their soul, and their existence is over. The Stranger by Albert Camus illustrates that the human soul exists in the world physically, therefore the presence or absence does not contribute to any particular event in life. Through, this thought the novel introduces Meursault, who alienates himself from society. He lacks concern for social conventions and is deprived of the physical bounding from people around him.

Meursault notices that during the trial, “there was a lot said about [him], maybe more about [him] than about [his] crime” (98). By having Meursault 's personality be the focal point of the courtroom 's dialogue, Camus implies that Meursault 's persona plays a crucial role in his trial. Instead of focusing on the murder of the Arab, the prosecutor repeatedly mentions Meursault 's "dubious liaison"(94), his "insensitivity" (99) during Maman’s funeral, and his friendship with Raymond, who is a man "of doubtful morality" (99). Through the emphasis on Meursault 's -according to society- 'immoral ' ways, the prosecutor eliminates any sort of sympathy the jury has for Meursault. Following Marie 's testimony, the prosecutor once again exhibits his confidence that bias against Meursault will stem from hearing about his behaviour.

The 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.

It quickly becomes clear that Meursault’s tone following the death of his mother reflects his desensitized and seemingly distant state. After realizing that his mother had