The Outsider By Albert Camus

In his novel The Outsider, Albert Camus portrays the philosophy of the absurd through his existentialist main character, Meursault. ~theory of absurdism~
Camus develops Meursault not as a traditional hero, but rather as an absurd one to encourage the idea of being abnormal from normal society. Detached and apathetic, Meursault is unable to identify with people and his environment. His indifferent attitude towards the world results in his label of an ‘outsider’ to society. Meursault does not wish for another fate, but accepts his upcoming death and does nothing about it. He has an existentialist view of life and refuses to lie. Therefore in The Outsider, Camus portrays Meursault as the perfect example of an absurd man, demonstrating that life is not only absurd but meaningless as well.

Meursault’s character is understood through his relationships with other people. The first thing that the readers notice about Camus’ protagonist is his abrupt, seemingly unemotional approach to people in his life. He is often interested in trivial details instead of seeing the true meaning of

He attends his mother’s funeral, but yet refuses to see his mother’s body and finds it interesting to think about the correlation between heat and the rate of decay of a human body (pg ~). During the procession of the funeral, he is cold, distanced from the people around, and gives an impression that he doesn’t care about his own mother’s death as he “hardly remember any details” about the funeral (pg. 26). It is evident that he is unaffected by the death of his mother and that it has little significance for him: “Really, nothing in my life had changed.” (pg. 33). Meursault shows an example of his existentialist traits through the fact that he does not know his mother’s age when asked by ~ (pg. ~). He is an absurd man because he does not have the smallest amount of care toward a family