In the novel, The Stranger, by Albert Camus, he portrays the concept of the book to be about how society’s limitations and rules change our own perspective on what to value. Camus uses the main character, Monseur Perez, to reveal who you are before society tells you who you should be. The real crime in the book is that Monseur is a stranger to society.
Society tends to put labels and judge people without ever getting to know them. Monsieur is the perfect example of being judged for his actions, such as “..for this is no ordinary murder, no thoughtless act for which you might find mitigating circumstances… he knows the value of words. And no one can say that he acted without realizing what he was doing…I was listening, and I could hear I was being judged intelligent. But I couldn’t quite understand how an ordinary man’s good qualities could be become crushing accusations against a guilty man.” Monsieur does not know the difference between guilt and sin, good and evil, right and wrong. He does not care about anything. He can see the way he lives his life and how it clashes against society. The impact of being an outsider wines him being executed publicly. He realizes the indifference he feels with society and the people considered to be “normal”, just as in the TV show Gossip Girl. You can see this when Jenny’s personality is seen negatively in Blair’s eyes. “For 3 years you tried to worm your way into our world. But you will never be apart of it. No matter what you do.” Jenny is like Monsieur in the way of being a true stranger to how society functions as a whole. They both had good intentions on being “normal” but are still banished from their own society.
In the book Monsieur is judged for multiple actions, such as his reactions to his mother’s death and how he didn’t know key details of his mother. “He asked if I had felt any sadness that day… it was hard for me to tell him what he wanted to know… He asked me if he could say I had held back my natural feelings. I said no, because that was untrue. He gave me a strange look, as if he found me slightly disgusting.” Monsieur has a complete lack of empathy for the death of his mother. In our society, this is seen as unimaginable and is a narcissistic personality. In the end the way he acts at his mother’s funeral causes the jury to alter their opinion and sentences Monsieur guilty of murder. He values being truthful, but is almost ashamed of being judged for his honesty. The culture we live in makes people feel ashamed and judged for being different. We can find this everywhere, even on social media. Women in particular can get fat shamed on Instagram for being what is considered in society’s eyes as “overweight’. An example is deezbryant1, a woman, who was fat shamed on Instagram for posting a photo immediately became ashamed after looking at a comment from a male that said he “just puked.. your body is disgusting”. Our society degrades women for not being a certain weight and judges them like they judge Monsieur for his lack of empathy. Our culture makes everyone feel ashamed to be different, instead of promoting uniqueness they ostracize it.
As a society, we are constantly told what to value, such as a rose is considered beautiful and elegant and a dandelion is considered a worthless weed. Monsieur disregards these limitations and doesn’t put any value on the desires a culture can put on everyone. “..for the first time, in that night alive with the signs and stars. I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world …I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again. For everything to be consummately for me to feel alone.” He accepts his fate and decides he cannot escape death. Ultimately he finds out that death doesn’t matter it’s the life you live that counts. Once he accepts the true indifference of the world he becomes at peace with his execution.
The character Monsieur isn’t your average human being. The story starts off as his mother dying and he doesn’t necessarily react in the “normal” way as society would call it. He wasn’t as emotional about it as anyone else would be as their mother passes, you may think at first “how weird is this guy?” But that’s what exactly what society molds you into thinking. Death is a normal thing yet a sad thing, it happens to everyone eventually and that was his mindset. He was very oblivious to questions being asked about his mother like her age and when she died , he acted very nonchalant when saying “I’m not quite too sure when she died, maybe a week or two ago”, which is very odd for someone to say when their mother dies. But, that’s just because he doesn’t know “society’s rules”. When your mother dies, it’s common to cry, grieve, but Monsieur doesn’t do that. He’s living his own life, doing things before society tells him what’s right and what’s wrong.
Everyone wants to be someone. That’s how it is in Mean Girls. Everyone wants to be part of the “Plastics”, because they fit into society’s expectations. Nobody wants to stand out, because society always finds a way to bring somebody down. There’s “set rules” that nobody wants to break because of consequences that they think will happen. For example in Mean Girls, the infamous line, “You can’t sit with us”, shows how when someone is different, they won’t be accepted, unless they follow what everyone expects of them. The mathlete, Kevin in the movie says, “Don’t let the haters stop you from doing your thang”. Whether we realize it or not, society peer pressures us into doing things we don’t want to do. The main character does not know the rules of society, he does his own thing, he’s happy. In the beginning of the movie one of the main characters, Cady, shows up to a brand new school in a brand new country sweet, innocent, and doesn’t care too much about her appearance. She gets introduced to the “plastics” and her entire attitude changes to snobby and always depicting other people’s flaws because that’s the “normal” thing to do in high school. In one of the scenes before she turns plastic , the other girls in the group are complaining of obnoxious things such as “man shoulders” “big pores” and a “bad hairline” all these things seem silly to complain about and all Cady has to say is that she has really bad breath in the morning which is normal for everyone and she clearly sees no flaws in herself until the plastics “brainwash” her into thinking what society expects or thinks of you. You can find this type of brainwash in the novel when the prosecutor points out Monsieur’s reactions to the death of his mother, the abuse of a women admitted by his neighbor, and having sexual intercourse with a girl who he is not married to. In his society these are all relevant rules and standards the culture has to live by. Not following rules in society will get you punished just as in Mean Girls said “You can’t sit with us!” The true impact of not fitting into society means you become an outcast.
In the show “Gossip Girl”, which is basically about everyone trying to fit up to society’s needs,one of the characters, Jenny, tries to fit into this new world that she’s in throughout the show. It’s a whole new city with “Manhattan’s Elite”, a group of privileged kids in a school who set the expectations of society way high. Blair, a girl who basically represents “society”, makes her do things she doesn’t want to do, things that are “right”. If Jenny likes one thing, but Blair doesn’t think it’s acceptable, she won’t let her do it. Blair represents in the show society trying to tell us what to do, telling us there are rules that must be followed. In one of the episodes, Jenny is seen yelling at her mom, telling her it is not right that she has to buy used clothing, while the other girls buy new clothes all the time. She is seen stealing one of her friends clothes, so that she has money to buy a whole set of new clothes, because buying old clothes isn’t acceptable in her world. In another episode, Jenny goes to extremes, beyond what she can handle, almost destructing herself, to try and fit in. Unfortunately, she comes to realize that everyone’s opinions of her doesn’t matter. She has to do her own thing, and stop letting everyone tell her what’s right and what’s wrong .In The Stranger, Monsieur relates to Jenny at the end of the novel. He ultimately realizes his experiences through life was his happiness and still is even though he is being executed the next day. Jenny at the end of the tv series finally comes at peace with her inner self and truly becomes happy with what she has. Both characters go through obstacles to finally go through their very own personal resolution. They have to had to go through challenges to understand the true meaning of happiness. Finally they see the indifference of society and how it each affected them both extremely.
Overall, in the novel, The Stranger, Albert Camus portrays society, its rules and the way it changes our perspective on life along with the decisions we make. In the examples we used, it is shown that the pressure of society isn’t just made up or exaggerated but actually happens in real life and affects people. Just as the protagonists in our examples, Monseur also goes through the harsh judgement of many people in his everyday life for not living up to society’s expectations.