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, unemotional from the world around him. The novel is divided into two parts; Part One narrates eighteen days in which includes witnessing his mother’s funeral, a love affair and a murder. In Part Two, Camus describes about a year, where the reader is present at a trial in which recounts the same eighteen days from various characters’ memories and points of view. Part One is full of mostly insignificant days in the life of Meursault, an insignificant man, until he commits a murder; while Part Two is an attempt, in a courtroom, to judge not only Meursault's crime but also his character. In doing so, Camus juxtaposes the subjective reality of Part One to the more objective, faceted reality of Part Two.
Written the time of his mother's death up to a time evidently just before his execution for the murder of an Arab, Camus describes Meursault character through a perspective of absurdity. He considers life and routine absurd, merely existing as an absurd man in an absurd world. He is almost totally unaffected by his mother's death – nothing changes in his life, 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." (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 those around him.
While Meursault’s mother had been living in an old persons’ home in Marengo, he arrives after sleeping nearly the entire trip. When there, the director allows Meursault to see his mother, but Meursault finds that her body has already been sealed in the coffin. He declines when the caretaker’s offer to open the coffin. During his time there, Meursault smokes a cigarette, drinks coffee, and dozes off. Later recounting that he remembers little of the funeral. The next day, Meursault went to the 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. When Meursault wakes up, Marie is gone. He stays in bed until noon and then sits on his balcony until evening, watching the people pass on the street. The following day, on Monday, Meursault returns to work. While walking upstairs to his apartment that night, Meursault runs into Salamano, an old man who lives in his building and owns a dog. Meursault also runs into his neighbor, Raymond. He later invites Meursault over for dinner, and during such Raymond recounts how he beat up his mistress after he discovered that she had been cheating on him. As a result, Raymond got into a fight with her brother, and now plans to torment his mistress even more, but he needs Meursault to write a letter to lure his mistress back to him. Meursault agrees and writes the letter that night. Simply stating that “I didn’t have any reason not to”. (31)
The following Saturday, Marie visited Meursault at his apartment. She asked Meursault if he loves her, and he replies that “it didn’t mean anything,” (34) And Marie further asks Meursault if he wants to marry her. He replied indifferently but says that they can get married if she wants to, so they become engaged. The following Sunday, Meursault, Marie, and Raymond go to a beach house owned by Masson, one of Raymond’s friends. That afternoon, Masson, Raymond, and Meursault run into two Arabs on the beach, one of whom is the brother of Raymond’s mistress. A fight occurs and Raymond is stabbed. After returning from the hospital later that day, Raymond goes back to the beach with Meursault. They yet 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. Later, however, Meursault returns to the beach alone, and, without reason, he shoots Raymond’s mistress’s brother, five times: once, waits then shoots another four. (57)
Part Two, drastically alters the narrative set up in Part One, by lacking any reliable time markers as disorganized by Meursault position in prison. The section starts with Meursault being arrested and thrown into jail, awaiting his trial. During such, Meursault describes without fault of his lack of remorse over his crime, causing his lawyer to further question his character through his lack of grief at his mother’s funeral. As he awaits his trial, Meursault slowly adapts to prison life. His isolation from nature, women, and cigarettes becomes a source of distress for him at first, but he eventually adjusts to living without them, and soon does not even notice their absence. 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, by further questioning Meursault having seen a comedic film the day after his mother’s funeral. This lack of moral feeling becomes labeled as a threat to society, and 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 does not long for faith and the afterlife, despite declaring that he is correct in believing in a meaningless, purely physical world. After this interaction, for the first time Meursault truly embraces the idea that human existence holding no greater meaning. He abandons all hope for the future and accepts the “gentle indifference of the world.” (116) This acceptance made Meursault feel happy.
Throughout the course of the novel, Meursault merely existed, as a distant, unemotional person, psychologically detached from the world around him. His existed would challenge the accepted moral standards set forth by society, by express little to no grief over death. Those around him saw him as an outsider and a threat for breaking this norm; all the while, the fact that he had no reaction to his mother’s death damaged his reputation far more than simply taking of another person’s life. His innate indifference over life events caused him to protected from disappointments, to exist nearly oblivious and untouched by those around him. He would not think much about events or their consequences, nor express much feeling towards his relationships. After his mother’s death he seemed to show no emotions, in addition to his limited feelings for his girlfriend, Marie, and showed no remorse at all for killing an Arab. He could not accept the formulas by which his society convinces itself it is happy and refused a to use religion as a means of avoiding his inevitable death.
Meursault’s realization of the absurdity of life gives him a divine knowledge of the world. This absurdism holds that the world is absurd and that looking for order or meaning remains insignificant. Rather, with The Stranger, Camus draws to use this notion of absurdity in Meursault’s character to allow the reader 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 life. It is Meursault's impending execution that causes him to consider life and death as equal possibilities. Camus argues that individual lives and human existence in general have no rational meaning or order. However, because people have difficulty accepting this notion. Rather they constantly attempt to identify or create rational structure and meaning in their lives. It is this futile attempt to find rational order where none exists that operates within the novel, while individual lives and human existence holding no rational meaning. Neither the external world in which Meursault lives nor the internal world of his thoughts and attitudes possesses any rational order. Meursault has no apparent reason for his actions, such as his decision to marry Marie and his choice to kill the Arab. Rather during the trial, attempts are made to fabricate a rational explanation for his irrational actions. This prospect that events have no meaning becomes threatening to society and the order that is necessary in containing it. The prosecutor and Meursault’s lawyer both offer explanations for Meursault’s crime based on logic and reason. Yet these explanations merely act as attempts to neutralize the frightening idea that the universe is irrational. The trial becomes a constructed avenue of absurdity, whereby Camus describes an instance of humankind’s futile attempt to impose rationality on an irrational universe.