Extensionalist beliefs say that the one and only final destination is death. No matter what good or bad one does in their life, everyone and thing is eventually greeted with death. This is the ultimate justice. Within The Stranger, the main character Meursault has an absolute definition of morality, and by extension, justice. His definition of justice and the societal definition of morality To Meursault, everything in life has an inevitable end and lack of meaning. Because of this belief, a potential reason for Meursault’s inability to care about his actions and emotions is because he believes that the ultimate justice is death. No matter whether he kills a man or contributes to society, the overall verdict for all goods and crimes is death. After Maman died, Meursault lacked emotion towards the loss of his mother. He claimed that “[he] probably did love Maman, but that didn’t mean anything.” The love for his mother or lack thereof has no contribution to the justice he will serve, therefore he doesn’t care whether or not he is able to love her. …show more content…
With the belief that justice is served upon death, Meursault serves his sentence for being indifferent about Maman’s death, loving Marie, killing the Arab, for living. According to Meursault, life was just “killing time” until he reached his final destination. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, society believes that Meursault’s condemnation was justice for his crimes, which were for lacking care for his mother’s death and for the murder of the Arab man. In the end, Meursault’s search for justice finally eradicated his title as a “stranger.” Both his definition of justice and society’s definition of morality reached the same conclusion, which caused Meursault to finally be part of society rather than a “stranger.” Both he and society believed that his justice was
Chapter 6 of part I of The Stranger concluded with Meursault’s conscious decision to shoot an Arab because of the physical discomfort the Arab’s knife caused him. The significance of the ending of part I is that it was the first demonstration of Meursault’s awareness of the possible consequences of the act that he committed. This awareness continues into the second part of the novel as he is arrested and trialed. The reason for Meursault’s trial is the murder of the Arab. His insensitivity towards Maman’s death and lack of a social conscientious are factors that contributed to support further investigations, but are not reasons to trial him because they have not ‘harmed’ society on a way that he could be arrested for. For example, if Meursault
Part I of The Stranger begins with Meursault's attendance at his mother's funeral. It ends with Meursault on the beach at Algiers killing a man. Part II is concerned with Meursault's trial for that same murder, his ultimate sentencing to death and the mental anguish that he experiences as a result of this sentence. Several curious parallels emerge here, especially with regard to Meursault's perception of the world.
Meursault shows very little love or sorrow at the fact of his mother's death. A normal man would feel pain and regret for not being by her side while Meursault does not even care much about the date she passed away. Immediately on the first page in the novel, we confront the situation where Meursault's mother dies, and he does not care about it. "Maman died today. 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. Maybe it was yesterday" (3). Meursault does not bother to call back and find information about his mother. Meursault shows no emotion or care for his mother because he sends her away for someone else to take care of her. During the last years of an elder person's life, they are invited to stay with the family in order to become closer with one another. Meursault could care less as he shows no sign of pain, and goes off to do something else. He resembles a figure where an issue as important as death does come as a priority. "We are the hollow men/ We are the stuffed men/ Leaning together/ Headpiece filled with straw" (Lines 1-4).
Albert Camus’ The Stranger offers one man’s incite into the justice of society. Monsieur Meursault, the main protagonist in the novel, believes that morals and the concept of right and wrong possess no importance. This idea influences him to act distinctively in situations that require emotion and just decision, including feeling sadness over his mother’s death, the abuse of a woman, and his killing of an innocent man. In these situations Meursault apathetically devoids himself of all emotion and abstains from dealing with the reality in front of him. When confronted by the court over his murder, he reiterates his habitual motto on life that nothing matters anyways, so why care? His uncaring response inflames the people working within the
Meursault resists being typecast into an archetypal moral category in many of his deeds and actions. Many of his actions in Part One of the novel help contribute to the fuzzy picture of the character. For example, at his mother's funeral, Meursault does not cry or weep in the typical mourning fashion, but rather sleeps during the vigil and entices one of the other mourners present to smoke a cigarette with him. This would be typically considered "evil" behavior, in the context of the story. He could easily been seen as disrespectful and seditious toward his mother and the established procedures of mourning, which seem to be fairly definite at that era in France. However, this "evil" mold can easily be shaken if one considers that Meursault may be more shaken than anyone else present at the funeral. Considering the other events in the novel, it seems as though he does not have a large capacity for emotion. Based on this, it is not unreasonable to assume that the events leading up to and including his mother's death may have overtaxed his limited scope of emotion, and he was therefore nearly incapable of mourning in the "normal" or expected way for his mother, but rather had to resort to his own, more c...
Meursault doesn’t conform to society such as understanding what we would call normal human emotions such as the emotions of love or death. The reason Meursault may seem disconnected from the felling of love is shown when his girlfriend ask about marriage. Meursault answers without caring by saying “it doesn’t make any difference to me and that we could if she wanted to” (Camus, 156). Meursault also show the disconnection of normal human emotions after his mother’s death. “… Maman’s death, but that was one of those things that was bound to happen sooner or later” (Camus, 123).
In Albert Camus’s The Stranger, Meursault, the protagonist, could be seen as immoral if he were judged on the basis of his actions alone. However, through Camus’s use of a first person narrative, we begin to understand Meursault as not an immoral man, but simply an indifferent one. Meursault is a symbol of the universe, and so in understanding him we understand that the universe is also not evil, but instead a place of gentle indifference.
Meursault (the narrator) in The Stranger only sees and only wants to see the absolute truth in society. The readers first encounter with him...
... mother, he does not react in a way most people do. He does not cry but instead accepts what has happened and realizes that he can not change it. He goes back and does physical things he would do on a normal day. When the caretaker offers him coffee, he accepts it, he smokes a cigarette and has sex with a woman he just met. Meursault also does not lie to escape death. He refuses to conform to society and lie. He would rather be seen as an outsider than do something that he does not believe in. Finally, Meursault, will not believe in G-d or Christianity just because it is the only thing to turn to before he is put to death. When Meursault decides not to cry at his mother’s funeral, he accepts himself as an outsider. When he is considered an outsider, it does not matter if he is guilty or innocent; at the end of the day he guilty just for being different.
His beliefs began to form during his experience of World War II and after the terrors of the war; many other people believed that the human existence had no meaning. The Stranger could be classified as an existentialist novel because the protagonist of the story, Meursault, also seems to have existentialist beliefs. Meursault is a character that is very out of touch with the world. His attitude and morals were not accepted by the people of the society in the story, which leads to his death sentence. When people deal with a death, they grieve by crying or showing some type of sad emotion.
In Albert Camus’ novel, The Stranger, the protagonist Meursault is a character who has definite values and opinions concerning the society in which he lives. His self-inflicted alienation from society and all its habits and customs is clear throughout the book. The novel itself is an exercise in absurdity that challenges the reader to face the nagging questions concerning the meaning of human existence. Meursault is an existentialist character who views his life in an unemotional and noncommittal manner, which enhances his obvious opinion that in the end life is utterly meaningless.
After only a few days of trial, the jury in The Stranger declares that the main character, Meursault, is to be executed by guillotine in the town square. The trial and its verdict are one of the important parts of the novel, as Albert Camus uses them as a metaphor to summarize the two main tenets of absurdism. Camus uses the trial and persecution of Meursault to express his belief that the justice system is flawed because of his absurdist ideals that truth does not exist, and human life is precious. In order to reform the justice system, Albert Camus believes that capital punishment needs to be abolished.
Choice and Individual Freedom in The Stranger Camus's The Stranger is a grim profession that choice and individual freedom are integral components of human nature, and the commitment and responsibility that accompany these elements are ultimately the deciding factors of the morality of one's existence. Meursault is placed in an indifferent world, a world that embraces absurdity and persecutes reason; such is the nature of existentialist belief, that rationalization and logic are ultimately the essence of humanity, and that societal premonitions and an irrelevant status quo serve only to perpetuate a false sense of truth. Meursault's virtue, as well as his undoing, lies in his unique tendency to choose, and thereby exist, without computing objective standards or universal sentiment. His stoic, de facto existentialism is a catalyst for endless conflict between his rationalization- and logic-based existence and that of others, which focuses on an objective subscription to "the norm" ; such is evident in heated discussions with the magistrate and prison minister, who are seen as paragons of invalid logic and the quixotic, quasi-passionate pursuit of hackneyed conformity. No windmills are slain1 in this simulated existence; absurdity of a different ilk dominates the popular mentality, one which would alienate a man based on his perceived indifference towards the mundane, and try, convict, and execute a man based on his lack of purported empathy towards the irrelevant.
“The sun was beginning to bear down on the earth and it was getting hotter by the minute.” (pg 15) A few minutes after the funeral Meursault was getting irritated by sun more and more as time went by. Meursault is very detached when it comes to his feelings he never showed them. For example during his mother funeral Meursault didn’t show no emotion he stated “It occurred to me that anyway one more Sunday was over, that Maman was buried now, that I was going back to work, and that, really, nothing had changed.” (pg 24) He was saying that although his mother had died nothing really would change and that this tragedy wouldn’t change his daily routine at all. That quote was very important because it shows you how distant and indifferent Meursault was. Furthermore the society that he was living in believed that one should mourn over death and because he didn’t mourn that only made him an outsider or a monster. You only have one mother so why would Meursault act so calm and okay when at his mother funeral. Also at the very beginning of the book Meursault didn’t even know the day that his mother had died on he said “Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe. I don’t know.” (pg 1) By reading this quote it is understood that he didn’t care how or when his mother died he just accepted that she was gone. This story was told from the perspective of Meursault which was told without any emot...
Albert Camus wrote The Stranger during the Existentialist movement, which explains why the main character in the novel, Meursault, is characterized as detached and emotionless, two of the aspects of existentialism. In Meursault, Camus creates a character he intends his readers to relate to, because he creates characters placed in realistic situations. He wants the reader to form a changing, ambiguous opinion of Meursault. From what Meursault narrates to the reader in the novel, the reader can understand why he attempts to find order and understanding in a confused and mystifying world.