Getting to Know "The Stranger"

I've finished sifting through the murky mind of Albert Camus, for now. The Stranger was nothing like what I had anticipated. I bit off more than I could swallow with The Fall, but not more than I can chew. 

Both of these novellas can be ingested, though not wholly digested, in a single sitting. I read The Fall entirely one afternoon this week on a riverside park bench, book in one hand, coffee in the other. If you're the type, the current weather is ideal for getting one's mind into a state conducive to Camus.

The title tells the story, really. Meursault is an unfeeling man that Camus dares the reader to relate to. He can be charming, eloquent, and innocent in the right moments, but you will always find yourself repelled by him.

The Stranger begins with a funeral. Meursault's mother has died, and he isn't quite torn up about it. If he feels anything, it is inconvenienced by the ensuing process, and inadequately prepared to deal with everyone else's consolation and grief. He never cries. He drink coffee in the coroner's office. He does not pay his last respects. And then he returns to his everyday life. "Really, nothing had changed" (24).

Several characters make his acquaintance. The day following the funeral, he chances upon an old crush, Marie, with whom he spends a care-free day at the beach that includes frivolous sex and a cinema film (a comedy). The two become quite an item, although she is clearly more invested in the relationship than he, going so far as to suggest they get married, which makes no bit of difference to him, either way (41).

Of particular note is his neighbor Raymond, who is overly eager to befriend a seemingly smart man with a good reputation, like Meursault. His friendship is tied to a request: that Meursault write a letter posing as Raymond to his ex-girlfriend, suggesting that she give him a second chance (so that he might teach her a lesson)(32). The plan works: Meursault witnesses Raymond abuse the woman and testifies to the police that Raymond was instigated. Later, a group of Arabs begins stalking Raymond, including the brother of the woman he beat.

Meursault, Marie, and Raymond are invited to an acquaintance's beach house, and all goes well, until a confrontation occurs between the men and the Arabs. A scuffle occurs, but breaks up without excess violence. Meursault, however, takes Raymond's gun for a stroll on the beach, encounters the Arab brother, and for seemingly no reason fires five bullets into him (59).

The second act of the novella details Meursault's murder trial. He shows little interest in his own case, often incriminating himself through his matter-of-fact tone and lacking remorse, until the prosecutor begins assassinating his character. The trial becomes just as much about the Arab as it does about Maman: witnesses testify of his behavior at the funeral, his too-sudden relationship with Marie, and his sketchy involvement with Raymond. Meursault ultimately accepts his guilt, spurns the comfort offered by Marie and the last rites, and is executed.

As a psychological novel, The Stranger is just as much about how the reader attempts to make sense of Meursault's perspective as it is any of what I just summarized. What makes the existential Meursault so detached;  so devoid of emotion and empathy?

Looming over his conscience and lurking in his reasoning is the shadow of Maman. It is notable how Camus is translated to English (by Matthew Ward). The text reads "Maman died today," not "mother" or "mom" (3). He refers to his mother has an adolescent would, and never deviates from it. While the action of the novella leaves her in the dust after page 18, Maman never strays far from Meursault's thoughts. Although it has been some time since she moved into a home for the elderly, Meursault  never grows into his apartment after her departure, and we are to imply that he never quite matured. Most of the room remains empty, all of the furniture stashing in his single room (21). During his last intimate moments with Marie, her visit to him at the prison, Meursault is notably more interested in the neighboring conversation than anything Marie has to say: a fellow prisoner sends off his visitor with, "Goodbye, Maman" (76). Her advice and stories are his greatest comfort in prison, for "it was one of Maman's ideas... after a while you could get used to anything... you could always find something to be happy about" (77, 113). The only other trial going on in the novel is one concerning parricide, a man who killed his father: an obvious parallel.

What can be inferred, then, from all this mother-talk? I don't believe that he misses or mourns his mother. I don't think he even loved his mother; he doesn't love anyone. But it her death does trigger this series of events. Everything interaction that happens is new to Meursault: he had no real interaction with any of the people he becomes involved with until after the funeral. There are no indications that he talked to anyone or did anything other than work prior to it. So perhaps it is mortality, fresh in his mind, that sets these events into motion. This hypothesis is more correlation than it is causation, however.

What I really think is going on here is a question of innocence. Camus is painting a portrait of a solitary, antisocial sociopath with mother issues. Is Meursault then the monster that the prosecutor makes him out to be, lacking all feeling and remorse (102)? Or, can we somehow rationalize Meursault's behavior?

Are we confusing his psychosis for a childlike innocence, as his use of "Maman" suggests? Early on, Meursault observes Mr. Salamano beating his dog and is unfazed (28). His indifference to this violence is reminiscent of the inability of children to parse acts of violence from acts of play. Meursault notices Salamano frequently, having lost his dog, but noticeably lost without it. "I never thought the bastard would take off like that," Salamano manages to explain in his disheveled, insecure state. "They're not going to take him away from me, are they, Monsieur Meursault?" (38-9). It follows that Meursault is reflecting on this, dwelling on it even, because he, too, never imagined this happening, and some void has been left behind.

This may also contribute Meursault's indifference to love and to Marie, for it is the physical relationship with her that he values having around. With Raymond, too, his desire to not displease him is reminiscent of a child's instinct to avoid conflict or punishment (32). Even the central act of the novel, the murder, brings Meursault's maturity into question, for he claims in the moment and later in the trial that it was the sun which caused him to shoot; the same sun that appeared the day he buried his mother (58, 103). His irrationality and his disconnection from responsibility and guilt make me wonder whether the death of his mother has somehow stunted his maturity.

In the end, there is no comforting answer to Meursault's strangeness. As a figure in the existentialist style, he gives his own meaning to the world; sees it in his own unique way, not the reader's. If there is any greater meaning that Camus wishes be extrapolated from his stranger, I think it must be that, try as we might to empathize with every man and woman, you can never quite know or understand one goes on in the head of another. The Stranger is an extreme example of this, but an effective one.

Favorite Quote:

"I knew that I had shattered the harmony of the day, the exceptional silence of a beach where I'd been happy. Then I fired four more times... And it was like knocking four quick times on the door of unhappiness" (59).

Meursault's presence of mind at the moment that defines his life is beautiful, as this quote demonstrates. One could say that it should be expected from a novel, even cliche, but it is so fitting of this particular character. It is a rare moment for Meursault to address his emotions, even to suggest that he has them. But I think that there is another rarity hidden here, concerning what he calls "the harmony of the day." It was a near perfect excursion. He knew that Marie was happy; perhaps the happiest of her life. He had become Raymond's friend. He had averted what could have been a crisis with the Arabs. I am compelled to believe that in addition to the discouraging realization that his life had reached it's peak, he acknowledges here that he has cost Marie her happiness, too. Not that it troubles him; only that it is an unfortunate side-effect, and his fault entirely.
This is perhaps the one time he shows regret, lamenting that he will no longer have freedom. Not to be confused with remorse for killing a man, which he lacks entirely.

Least Favorite Quote:

"For everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate" (123).

This is how the novella ends: Meursault, embracing his execution, gives these parting words. They lack the stoicism and indifference that he lived with; by contrast, they smatter of pride and cockiness and indignation and... I don't get them. Leaving on this note, it is not clear that Meursault does wish for this, mind you ("I had only to"). But why say so, then?
Just as confusing is the mention of loneliness, which is a word I do not recall mentioned before in the work. He was not lonely for love, nor lonely for friends, nor lonely for God. Was he lonely for Maman? You could make a convincing case both ways. But to think that here at the end that Meursault feels lonesome doesn't jive with me. After his acclimation to solitary confinement and indifference to Marie and to God, this suggestion frankly pissed me off.


While The Stranger will not go down as a favorite novel of mine, reading it did prompt a worthwhile train of thought that I had afterward on the novel as an art form. Meursault irrefutably lives up to the namesake bestowed by the title. Camus's intent is to establish a disconnect between the character and the reader. There are moments that Camus baits us into giving him the benefit of the doubt: when he first romances Marie, when he is peer-pressured by Raymond, and when the prosecutor begins attacking his character rather than the case itself. In these moments, we stick a toe into the pool. Despite all prior evidence, we unconsciously begin testing the waters, testing our empathy. Here, is he not so very different from ourselves?
Camus has a knack for prolonging "the stranger" from coming out, as he inevitably does. We take the bait; we want to understand him. And then Meursault will push us back out, with little warning. Of Marie, he will say, "Marie meant nothing to me. I wasn't interested in her (being) dead" (115). At Raymond's improper request, he complies complacently, because "I didn't have any reason not to please him" (emphasis mine, 32). And after we have sided with Meursault because of the prosecutor's smear tactics, he rebuffs us: "I couldn't help admitting that he was right. I didn't feel much remorse for what I'd done" (100).
So why is it that we, as readers, are capable of dipping our toes into the same pool, over and over again,  only to inevitably be rebuffed? Does our drive to relate, to actually be the character insofar as we are capable, not know when to stop? It is after this line of questioning that I arrived at the medium: the novel. In film, even in audio recording, I think that there is a gut response every person has to a man shot in cold blood. Stories told in this way are accompanied by audible gunfire and the physical sight of life become inanimate. This affliction on the senses is a jarring experience. The novel does not affect any senses, unless you count seeing the printed words. My point, then, is that because we do not have a physical response to the narrator's dissonant actions in the novel, we continue to fall for Camus's gambit. The form contributes to the author's game, for we will continue trying to make the stranger into something familiar, to no avail.