In a simple style of words and language, Camus masterfully molds a novel through the narrative of a single man: Meursault. Taking place in the 1940’s, his book, “The Stranger” written through the first-person narrative of its protagonist, Meursault, that allows the reader to fully understand his actions and character. Throughout his narrative, Meursault’s character develops from part one to part two, emerging from an indecisive person lacking emotions to an existential character who ultimately accepts his death. “Counting Stars”, by One Republic was not inspired by or created with the purpose to describe Meursault. However, with deeper analysis of the lyrics, a relation can be found between the meaning of the lyrics and Meursault’s unique character. Contained within the song are words that accurately portray the narrative’s amoral character, reaction to his verdict, and development of existential qualities followed by a peaceful acceptance of his death.
Meursault’s character lacks the emotion and morals that are expected in society, as portrayed in the song “Counting Stars,” specifically in the paragraph in the first verse beginning with “I feel something so right...”. The singer describes his feeling as “I feel something so right/ By doing the wrong thing/ And I feel something so wrong/ By doing the right thing”. This verse portrays a message of mixed morals and an uncertainty of what is right and what is wrong in the world. Similarly, Meursault is a character who - although seems to seems to lack morals - simply has a different perception of morals and values. During his trial, the opposing lawyer creates an argument against Meursault by judging his actions as moral or immoral. He declares Meursault “had no place in society ...
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...d no more counting dollars
We'll be counting stars
Lately I been, I been losing sleep (hey!)
Dreaming about the things that we could be
But baby, I been, I been prayin' hard (hey!)
Said no more counting dollars
We'll be, we'll be counting stars
Oh, oh, oh.
[Bridge 4x:]
Take that money
Watch it burn
Sing in the river
The lessons I learned
Everything that kills me makes me feel alive
[Chorus]
Lately I been, I been losing sleep (hey!)
Dreaming about the things that we could be
But baby, I been, I been prayin' hard (hey!)
Said no more counting dollars
We'll be counting stars
Lately I been, I been losing sleep
Dreaming about the things that we could be
But baby, I been, I been prayin' hard
Said no more counting dollars
We'll be, we'll be counting stars
[Outro 4x:]
Take that money
Watch it burn
Sing in the river
The lessons I learned
Meursault is a fairly average individual who is distinctive more in his apathy and passive pessimism than in anything else. He rarely talks because he generally has nothing to say, and he does what is requested of him because he feels that resisting commands is more of a bother than it is worth. Meursault never did anything notable or distinctive in his life: a fact which makes the events of the book all the more intriguing.
Character list Annemarie is one of the main characters in this book. She is a 10 year old German girl who lives in Copenhagen, Denmark with her mom, dad, and young sister Kirsti. Annemarie tells the story from her point of view. “It was only in the fairy tales that people were called upon to be so brave, to die for one another. Not in real-life Denmark” Annemarie struggles to find the definition of courage, but with the big journey that awaits uphead she soon finds out.
This passage is set before Meursault’s execution with the chaplain entering the scene, and telling Meursault that his “heart is blind”, leading to Meursault to yell and delve into his rant, and moment of consciousness. The passage has a calm in the beginning as if Meursault catches his breath from yelling previously, and he starts to reassure himself that he is not wrong for expressing his views as it went against the public’s religious beliefs, and states that this moment was so important to him that it was if his life was merely leading up to it. Why this particular scene is important to Meursault is that this is an instance where he successfully detaches himself from the world, and begins to deconstruct the world’s ideals as his rant shifts on to focusing on how nothing in life mattered. Meursault describes his gripes with the chaplain’s words as he explains his reasoning as to why the concept of a god is flawed as Meursault saw that everyone was inherently the same, with equal privileges just how often people could express them separated them. The passage continues with Meursault arguing that everyone would be faced with judgment or punishment one day, and explains why his own situation was not significant as it was no different. After that explanation the passage ends with Meursault posing the concept of everything in the world being equal both in wrongdoing and life in general, evident in his example of saying “Sala¬mano's dog was worth just as much as his wife.” Although the passage shows Meursault challenging the ethics and morals that the world around him follows, it does have instances like the end in which we see that the rant is still expression of Meursault's complex emotions, as it is unclear whether it is fear or a...
In the same way the power of society suffocates and confuses Meursault as it bears down on him with its views on morality. The sun is also present at the trial, just as is the force of society which claims to possess the right to judge people. The force of society is absent in the prison, likewise the sun is absent from Meursault's dark cell, and because the overpowering force of society has been removed, Meursault is finally able to "[open himself] to the gentle indifference of the world."
Since he cares little for the affairs of the world, claiming they do not mean anything, then justice—a major concern of the world—also means nothing to him. His actions both before and after his decision to kill a man without provocation demonstrate his apathetic view of the world, and his indifference to justice. Therefore Meursault’s search for justice, culminated by the court’s decision to execute him, remains an example to all of the inability of society to instill justice in criminals. Meursault’s perpetual refusal to acquire a sense of morality and emotion instigates skepticism in all who learn of his story of society’s true ability to instill justice in 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...
...able option. Camus’s main character, Meursault, embodies this third option; by accepting his circumstances and being indifferent to them, Meursault is able to break free of all possible causes of anxiety and find happiness. Furthermore, Meursault’s rejection of religion as belief, his acceptance of the “benign indifference of the universe”, and his acceptance of his circumstances all leading to happiness personifies Camus’s take on Absurdism, the philosophy that Camus is trying to depict in The Stranger (76). By using foil characters to contrast Meursault in actions or personality, Camus creates several polarizing situations, making Meursault the extreme epitome of Absurdism in every contrasting relationship and thus, shining light on his ideology in the process.
The book that I read was called The Stranger written by Albert Camus. The book is globally famous and was translated to many different languages and texts. The original was called L’Étranger which was written in French in 1942. The plot of this story involved a man in his late twenties or early thirties. The man's name is Meursault. In the beginning of the novel, Meursault is notified that his mother had passed away in the nursing home that he occupied her to. Meursault’s income could not afford to take care of his mother any longer; therefore, he put her in a nursing home. Meursault took off of work and went to the nursing home where she passed away to pay his respects and attend the funeral ceremonies. When he arrived at the nursing home, the funeral director brought Meursault to his mother’s coffin. The director asked if he wanted to see her and he quickly replied to keep the coffin shut. Meursault sat in the room and nearly went through an entire pack of cigarettes while blankly watching his mother’s coffin. At the actual funeral, Meursault shows no signs of normal emotion which would normally be induced at such an event.
“But from the moment he knows, his tragedy begins.” Meursault is not unlike Sisyphus. In the novel, The Stranger, by Albert Camus, we watch this character change from a carefree man who loves being alive and free to a man who is imprisoned for a meaningless murder he commits but who eventually finds happiness in his fate.
In The Stranger, Camus portrays women as unnecessary beings created purely to serve materialistically and satisfy males through the lack of a deep, meaningful, relationship between Meursault and females. Throughout the text, the main character, Meursault, creates closer, more meaningful relationships with other minor characters in the story. However, in his interactions with females in this book, Meursault’s thoughts and actions center on himself and his physical desires, observations, and feelings, rather than devoting his attention to the actual female. Living in Algiers in the 1960s, Meursault originates from a post-modernist time of the decline in emotion. Meursault simply defies the social expectations and societal ‘rules’, as post-modernists viewed the world. Rather than living as one gear in the ‘machine’ of society, Meursault defies this unwritten law in the lackluster relationships between he and other females, as well as his seemingly blissful eye to society itself. In The Stranger, males, not females, truly bring out the side of Meursault that has the capacity for compassion and a general, mutual feeling relationship. For example, Marie and Meursault’s relationship only demonstrate Meursault’s lack of an emotional appetite for her. Also, with the death of Maman, Meursault remains virtually unchanged in his thoughts and desires.
But in the novel, the main character, Meursault, does not show any emotion to his mother’s death. Meursault was not moral, but he was not immoral either. It is because he lacks any emotional feelings. He is detached from the world and he is seen by society as an outcast because of the way he acts. Meursault’s personality can be described as dull and boring.
In The Stranger, Albert Camus describes the life of the protagonist, Meursault, through life changing events. The passage chosen illustrates Meursault’s view during his time in prison for killing the Arab. In prison, one can see the shifts in Meursault’s character and the acceptance of this new lifestyle. Camus manipulates diction to indicate the changes in Meursault caused by time thinking of memories in prison and realization of his pointless life. Because Camus published this book at the beginning of World War II, people at this time period also questions life and death similar to how Meursault does.
The most popular topic that people talk about when they discuss “The Stranger” is Albert Camus’s Absurdism. However, associating with history background in 1940s, we can find that “The stranger” satirizes French colonists’ inconsistent behavior, and sympathizes with the native Algerian. Albert Camus uses Meursault’s life as an epitome to reflect the miserable life that Algerian have to express his political opinion implicitly.
Attention to the trial sequence will reveal that the key elements of the conviction had little to do with the actual crime Meursault had committed, but rather the "unspeakable atrocities" he had committed while in mourning of his mother's death, which consisted of smoking a cigarette, drinking a cup of coffee, and failing to cry or appear sufficiently distraught. Indeed, the deformed misconception of moral truth which the jury [society] seeks is based on a detached, objective observation of right or wrong, thereby misrepresenting the ideals of justice by failing to recognize that personal freedom and choice are "...the essence of individual existence and the deciding factor of one's morality.2" The execution of Meursault at the close of the novel symbolically brings
Camus writes in a simple, direct, and uncomplicated style. The choice of language serves well to convey the thoughts of Meursault. The story is told in the first person and traces the development of the narrator's attitude toward himself and the rest of the world. Through this sort of simple grammatical structure, Camus gives the reader the opportunity to become part of the awareness of Meursault. In Part I, what Meursault decides to mention are just concrete facts. He describes objects and people, but makes no attempt to analyze them. Since he makes no effort to analyze things around him, that job is given to the reader. The reader therefore creates his own meaning for Meursault's actions. When he is forced to confront his past and reflect on his experiences, he attempts to understand the reasons for existence. At first, Meursault makes references to his inability to understand what's happening around him, but often what he tells us seems the result of his own indifference or detachment. He is frequently inattentive to his surroundings. His mind wanders in the middle of conversations. Rarely does he make judgments or express opinions about what he or other characters are doing. Meursault walks through life largely unaware of the effect of his actions on others.