The Stranger Literary Analysis

The Stranger, written by Albert Camus, tells the story of Meursault. It is about Meursault an indifferent young man living in France. It shows what leads up to Meursault committing murder, the murder, and the aftermath. Albert Camus writes the story in first person narrative. The Stranger being written in first person narrative shows us why and how Meursault is so isolated. This in turns shows us how extreme isolation leads to disinterest in society, and in this case, murder. Meursault is isolated from society. More emotionally than physically, although he does spend some days locked away in his apartment. He creates this isolation himself. Meursault has an inability to feel emotions and this leads to the majority of his isolation. The novel

Meursault commits murder because he’s scared of feeling his emotions. This sounds contradictory, one would think murder would make you feel even more. During Maman’s funeral, Meursault has a strong reaction when asked if he wanted to see her body. Meursault declined then became embarrassed because he, “felt I shouldn’t have said that”(6). Seeing the body of a deceased loved one is hard to process emotionally and too much for Meursault to handle. Instead of letting his emotions out he refused to see Maman and instead became embarrassed by this fact. When Meursault kills the Arab he does this because he wants his emotions to stop. Earlier that day Meursault had been happy, playing with Raymond, Marie, and Raymond’s friends, “we moved in unison and were happy”(50). Meursault and Raymond also had a nasty encounter with some enemies of Raymond, “they took off running as fast as they could while we stood there motionless in the sun and Raymond clutched at his arm dripping with blood”(54). Meursault has already been experiencing lots of emotions in the day, happiness, fear, and anger are all strong emotions. Not to mention the sun was so hot that “I (Meursault) could feel my forehead swelling under the sun”(57). All of these were building in Meursault when he again confronted the Arab. When he again sees the Arab Meursault announces, “The sun was the same it had been on the day I’d buried Maman, and like then, my forehead was hurting me, all the veins in it throbbing unrt the skin. It was this burning, which I couldn’t stand anymore, that made me move forward(58-59). It was the intensity of his emotions that he could not handle that drove him to kill the Arab. He wanted them all to stop and in that moment he thought he knew how to make