Albert Camus writes his novel The Stranger using a first-person perspective as he narrates the life of Meursault: a man who remains detached, distant, and unemotional from the world around him. The novel is divided into two parts: Part One noting eighteen days in which events such as Meursault witnesses his mother’s funeral, a love affair, and a murder occur. This first part of the novel documents the moments of Meursault’s day-to-day normality, until he commits murder. In Part Two, Camus describes approximately a year in duration, focusing on the trial as an aftermath of Meursault’s crime. In doing so, the same eighteen days from Part One are recounted, but from various characters’ memories and points of view, whereby Meursault is targeted not only for the crime but also his character. The Stranger becomes a juxtaposition between the subjective reality of Part One to a more objective, faceted reality of Part Two.
Written after the death of his mother up until Meursault’s execution for the murder of an “Arab”, Camus describes Meursault as an absurd man in an absurd world. He is almost completely unaffected by his mother's death and, as a result, nothing in Meursault’s life changes and her death has little or no real significance for him. The novel begins with: "Mother died today. Or, maybe, yesterday; I can't be sure" (Camus 3), carefully and clearly setting up the indifference Meursault experiences to the world around him. It is this outward honesty that becomes so absurd to the rest of his society.
While Meursault’s mother had been living in a retirement home in Marengo, he arrives to her visitation and funeral after sleeping nearly the entire trip. Once he arrives, the director allows Meursault to see his mother, but he finds that her coffin had already been sealed, and declines their offer to reopen it. The following day, Meursault returns home and goes to a public beach for a swim. There, he ran into Marie, his former co-worker. The two then head to see a comedy at the movie theatre and spend the night together. While walking back to his apartment the following day, Meursault runs his neighbor, Raymond, who invites Meursault over for dinner. During their meeting, Raymond recounts how he beat up his mistress after he believes that she has been cheating on him – and as a result, Raymond got into a fight with her brother. While disclosing this to Meursault, he mentions his plans to further hurt his mistress, but regards his need for Meursault to write a letter to lure her back to him. Meursault agrees to do so, simply stating that “I didn’t have any reason not to” (Camus 31). This remark speaks to his indifference towards his actions and the mere insignificance of their aftermath.
The following week, Marie visited Meursault at his apartment, asking him if he loves her. He evidently replies that “it didn’t mean anything,” (Camus 34) causing Marie to further ask Meursault if he wants to marry her. He replied indifferently as he continuously displays that he lacks desire and ambition to advance socio-economically. Despite this, he says that they can get married if she wants to, and they become engaged. The next day Meursault, Marie, and Raymond go to a beach house owned by Masson, one of Raymond’s friends. While there, Masson, Raymond, and Meursault run into two “Arabs” on the beach, one of whom was Raymond’s mistress’s brother. A fight occurs and Raymond is stabbed. Yet after returning from the hospital later that day, Raymond goes back to the beach with Meursault. They again, run into the “Arabs” where Raymond considers shooting them with his gun, but Meursault talks him out of it and holds onto the gun instead. Meursault states “It was then that I realized that you could either shoot or not shoot.” (Camus 54) Meursault explains in this his thoughts towards the mere insignificance of any action and therefore of human existence causing him to confront the meaninglessness of human life. And as a result, Meursault returns to the beach alone, and, without reason, shoots Raymond’s mistress’s brother.
In Part Two, Camus drastically alters the narrative set up in Part One by lacking any reliable time markers as disorganized by Meursault’s perception in prison. The section starts with Meursault being arrested and thrown in jail while he awaits his trial. During such, Meursault describes his lack of remorse over his crime, causing his lawyer to further question his character. As he awaits his trial, Meursault slowly adapts to prison life. He manages to keep his mind occupied, and spends most of his time sleeping. During the trial, the subject matter quickly shifts away from the murder to a discussion of Meursault’s character. This is brought into question through his reaction to his mother’s death in particular. While having the funeral director and several other people attest to his lack of grief or more physically: his lack of tears, it is further questioned that Meursault had seen a comedic film the day after his mother’s funeral. This lack of moral feeling becomes labelled as a threat to society. Meursault is found guilty and sentenced to death by beheading.
Once Meursault returned to prison to await his execution, he struggled to come to terms with his situation. There he dreamed of escaping and filing an appeal to his sentencing, all the while avoiding the certainty and inevitability of his fate. One day, a chaplain came to visit and urged Meursault to turn to God, but he refused. The chaplain could not believe that Meursault did not desire faith and the afterlife, despite Meursault constantly declaring that he is correct in believing in the meaningless and purely physical world. In doing so, Meursault denies the existence of God, and consequently denies morality, as well as the external meaning of life and death. After this interaction, for the first time, Meursault truly embraces the idea that human existence holds no greater meaning. He abandons all hope for the future and accepts the “gentle indifference of the world.” (Camus 116) This acceptance makes Meursault feel happy.
Throughout the course of the novel, Meursault merely exists as a distant, unemotional person, psychologically detached from the world around him. His indifference challenges the accepted moral standards set forth by society, by expressing little to no grief over death. Those around him see him as an outsider and a threat for breaking this norm, and in doing so, the fact that he had no reaction to his mother’s death damaged his reputation far more than simply taking another person’s life. His innate indifference over life events causes him to be protected from disappointments, and merely exist obliviously and untouched by those around him. He would not think much about events or their consequences, nor express many feelings towards his relationships. As further described in his response to his mother’s death, his limited interest in developing his relationship with Maria and by showing no remorse for killing the “Arab”– he could not accept the formulas by which his society set forth to convince themselves that they are happy.
Meursault’s realization of the absurdity of life gave him a divine knowledge of the world. This absurdism is described within the world and its need to obtain order and meaning in pure insignificance. However, Camus argues that to have any notion of right or wrong in its order is utterly absurd. Rather, he aims to use this notion of absurdity in Meursault’s character to accept the absolute indifference of the world towards human life. It is only the thought of impending death that grants Meursault the ability to acknowledge meaning and importance in life. When confronted with his execution Meursault considers life and death as equal possibilities. Camus emulates that individual lives and human existence, in general, have no rational meaning or order. However, people have difficulty accepting this notion, and as a result, they attempt to identify or create rational structure and meaning in their lives. Despite this futile attempt to find rational order where there is none, the result merely emphasizes on individual lives and human existence as a whole, containing no rational meaning.
For Meursault, it was neither the external world in which he lived nor the internal world of his thoughts and attitudes that possessed any rational order. Attempts were made during Meursault’s trial to fabricate a rational explanation for his irrational actions – yet while the prospect of such events having no meaning, simply became threatening to his society and the order that was necessary in containing it. Both the prosecutor and Meursault’s lawyer offered justifications for Meursault’s actions under based of logic and reason. However, it was these explanations that attempted to neutralize the frightening idea that the universe is irrational. The trial rather became a constructed avenue of absurdity, whereby Camus described an instance of humankind’s futile attempt to impose rationality on an irrational universe.
It is this irrationality of life and meaninglessness of society that causes an insignificance of human activity and as a result the physicality of the world. Camus uses the novel to argue that the only purpose in a human’s life is the purpose one places there themselves. Meursault follows this theory by rejecting both religion and materiality to focus on life and the physical experience. What remains, however, is that human life has no redeeming meaning or purpose – rather the only certainty lies in the inevitability of death. As a result, all lives are all equally meaningless. Meursault does not fully grasp this until after his argument with the chaplain in his final days. Just as he is indifferent to the society surrounding him, so are others indifferent to him.
Like all human beings: Meursault has been born, will die, and will have no further importance. Yet it is only after Meursault reaches this realization is he able to obtain happiness. Meursault only then understands the significance of human life in light of mortality, and as a result he showed his consciousness alter through the course of events. Camus theorizes that the possibility of death does have an effect on one's perception of life. When he comes to terms with the inevitability of death, he then begins to understand that it does not matter whether he dies by execution or lives to die from old age. He has no higher power to appeal to, allowing him free will to make his own choices; he no longer must be bound by the fear of not living. He simply does not need to create meaning from what holds no meaning at all. Instead, Meursault realizes that these false hopes, which had previously preoccupied his mind, would merely create an unrealistic idea that death is avoidable. Meursault then begins to recognize this as a burden and in doing so, it is his liberation from this false hope that allows him to be free to live out his final days.