The Stranger Nonconformism Essay

Society constrained to a specific social standard reproaches individuals who do not conform to such ethics. Albert Camus’s The Stranger exemplifies Meursault as a passive nonconformist who refuses to meld into society’s norm and thus condemned for failing to meet society’s social expectations. Through the use of irony and hyperbole, Camus reveals how the outcast, Meursault, Is put to death because of his nonconformist beliefs. Meursault’s nonconformist character consistently doesn’t see the need to express his emotions. The absurdist beliefs of Camus are reflected through Meursault’s passive approach to life. Camus uses a first person perspective which would normally allow the reader to see inside the narrators head. However in this case

However society does expect definite emotions to be connected to specific events. Emotions such as a physical representation of grief at his mother’s funeral, and a passionate desire for one’s significant other. His relationship with Marie further represents Meursault’s refusal to conform to society’s demands to express emotion. He thinks nothing of having an affair with her right after his mother’s funeral. When they are together he is solely focused on her body and physical elements as, “[he] helped her onto a buoy…as [he] did so, [he] brushed against her breasts” and, “she had her leg pressed against mine, and I was fondling her breasts.” He “really fancied her because she was wearing a pretty red and white striped dress and leather sandals. You could see the shape of her firm breasts and her suntanned face was like a flower.” All of his observations of Marie are physical, noticing her outer beauty not her inner characteristics or personality. Despite society’s expectation that people be loved for who they are not what they look like, Meursault’s attraction to Marie is purely physical which is proved when she visits him in jail and he, “wanted to squeeze