Reflective Statement: The Stranger By Albert Camus

The Stranger is a novel written by Albert Camus and was published in 1942. It follows the story of Meursault, an indifferent French Algerian, and his actions leading to his eventual death. Camus, a French philosopher, author, and journalist most notably renowned for his philosophy of absurdism, distributes a recurring theme of existentialism and absurdism throughout the novel, and heavily does so in passages that serve the most significance to the story. 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 Stranger by Albert Camus, the protagonist Meursault represents Camus’ atheistic existentialist mindset by depicting emotional and psychological detachment from the world. Not only does Meursault symbolizes Camus’ atheistic existentialist beliefs, he also exemplifies Camus’ argument that “nothing matters.” Meursault’s display of apathy towards societal standards such as his indifference to his mother’s death, his deviant behavior in his relationships with Marie, Solomon, and Raymond, and his immoral action of killing the Arab highlight Camus’ atheist existentialist perspective.

Throughout Albert Camus’s novel The Stranger the idea of existentialism and absurdity is portrayed through the life of main character Meursault. Through this first person narrative, we experience his viewpoint on life and the acceleration of its meaning

Meursault has an absurdist attitude toward his world inside of his mental and physical world. Meursault blames his rash actions on the world and environment. At Meursault’s trial, after he killed the Arab, he defended himself by saying, “it was because of the sun.” (Camus, 103) Meursault actually believed that the sun made him kill the Arab man. In The Stranger, the sun is the main antagonist. It vindictively attacked Meursault and caused him to act the way he did. Meursault claims that he didn’t intend on shooting him, but the sun blinded his thoughts and his ability to think and reason quickly and rationally. The environment parallels the Gods in the myth of Sisyphus. The Gods are stubborn, harsh, and irrational, just like the environment. Neither of them have good intentions for the protagonist, yet both protagonists eventually overcome them and absurdly prosper. Meursault’s external world has rational order, but the world inside of his head doesn’t have any order whatsoever. His external world contains his occupation and things that he does on a daily basis, which seem to be scheduled and orderly, but the world inside of his head is disarranged. With what appears to be a hectic life, Meursault doesn’t seem to realize, because a vast majority of his physical life is so scheduled. It is routine to him. But, his mental life is disorganized. 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

All mankind must live free and happy realizing that all must die. In Albert Camus’ novel The Outsider, Meursault is portrayed as a man with tragic hero qualities and heartlessness because he has no emotions to show the world which will cost him his life. Meursault is a detached and deathly honest guy who refuses to lie about himself to save his life. Meursault is interested far more in the physical aspects of the world around him than in its social or emotional aspects. Meursault implies that there is no higher meaning or order to human life. Some believe that we were put on this earth for a reason, to make a difference. Meursaults mentality is that there is no meaning to human life, we were not meant for anything greater than what we are.

Existentialism is a philosophy that invites us to find purpose and meaning in life by thinking independently and acting deliberately, without overt influence from social norms. This philosophy manifests in Albert Camus’s novel The Stranger in the strange character of Meursault, who defies many major social norms throughout the novel. He places no faith in justice or authority figures. He does not pretend to grieve for his dead mother. He finds no logic or rationality in the universe. By exposing the meaninglessness of these social norms in society, Camus invites us to challenge the social norms that dictate our daily lives and to create our own meaning in the society.

“As Meursault pulled the trigger, he could feel the heat from his cheek from the sandy bright beach.” In The Stranger, the author Albert Camus uses different methods of mood and atmosphere in the novel which heightened the understanding of the novel and contributed to the descriptive patterns of the book. From the heat symbolism that creates a certain atmosphere in the book, to the specific mood he portrays in the novel.This all goes into the pattern that Camus blatantly put in the book to show a specific mood and to add an atmosphere to the novel.

In The Stranger by Albert Camus’ which sets in 1940s French Algeria, shows the significance of the absent character Maman. Monsieur Meursault is an existentialist which he shows his lack of emotion and translation towards Maman and her death. Madame Meursault and her son have a meaningless sense of love in there relationship and no sense of family and life. Monsieur Meursault not only shows the lack of love and emotion though his Maman but though Marie, shooting the Arab, and being judged as a criminal through the trials.

The Outsider is a novel that broadly explores the philosophy of the Absurd, which is the conflict between one’s attempt to search for a meaning of life, and one’s inability to find any. It is different from Nihilism in the aspect that, although one acknowledges that there is no meaning of life, they should not cease in the attempt of finding one. In the novel, this philosophy is explored through the worldview of the main character, Meursault, and is contrasted with other characters’ views, which look at the world from a more rational perspective.

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.

According to Camus, life is an irrational state of being in which humans create rational concepts like ‘society’ or ‘justice’ to try and make sense of it. Meursault’s rejection of this kind of rationality both at the beginning and the end of The Stranger reflects how life will go on unaffected by whether superficial, and potentially non-existent, concepts like justice are realized and that there is nothing man can do about it other than to accept

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. This fight leads to Meursault going to a murder trial because he shoots one of the Arabs four times and kills him. Meursault shows importance of the physical world when he is at Maman’s funeral, while in a fight with the Arabs and when he is at his murder trial. Meaursault connects more to the physical world rather than to the

II. Camus illustrates his critical observation of death by demonstrating it through the main character Meursault, who shows human existence has no logical meaning and people aiming to produce reasons as to why life is significant.

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. Through the use of diction and symbolism; Camus reveals Meursault’s is apathetic towards his bonding with others and unable

In The Stranger by Albert Camus, there was the theme throughout of the author’s opinion of absurdity; the ludicrousness of the universe and the meaninglessness of human life. He propagated the notion of life not having any coherent meaning and any set mandate. The term “absurdity” defines man’s attempt to put meaning to life even where none exists. Man is constantly trying to prove that life has structure and order according to Camus as he has difficulties accepting that it is otherwise. Camus taunted us with many philosophical questions, over and over we are forced to wonder “who is man?”