Albert Camus A Misogynist Analysis

What makes a person a misogynist? This is the burning question at the heart of many contemporary literary pieces, and social situations in the twenty first century. Yet, looking back this concept of men being stronger and better than women has been a climactic theme in most societies since the beginning of civilization. One novel that features this age-old, misogynistic, literary tendency is Albert Camus’s The Stranger. Within this piece, Meursault, the main character, is a young, white man living in French-controlled Algeirs during World War II. Meursault goes through his life with indifference towards all things, especially women. Camus proves his misogynistic views through his objective representation, exploitation, indifference, and lack of development of his female characters. Camus’s misogyny shines through in the specific scenes of Meursault’s mother’s death, again when Raymond, a pimp, assaults his girlfriend, and once more with Meursault’s sexual objectification of Marie, his sometimes girlfriend.

Vocabulary.com describes a misogynist as “a person who hates or doesn't trust women.” Unfortunately, this ideology was shared by many influential thinkers of Camus’s time, including Ernest Hemmingway who demeaned women in such instances as when he said that Zelda Fizgerald ruined her husband’s literary abilities in a

letter to one of his friends Maxwell Perkins:
A woman ruined Scott. … Because she was sick. …it’s because they’re sick you can’t treat them as you should. You can always trade one healthy woman in on another. But start with a sick woman and see where you get. …If you leave a woman, though, you probably ought to shoot her. It would save enough trouble in the end, even if they hanged you. (Perkins, The Sons of Maxwell Perkins, 321)
If someone with as much literary power and influence as Hemmingway expressed himself in this way, even in a letter to a friend, his ideology would certainly be passed down to his contemporaries and the next generation of writers that included Camus. Although this might be an inside look into the male psychology of Camus’s day, this is by no means justification of his blatant sexist tendencies.
All writers have a choice in how they depict their characters and Camus’s choice was to leave his female characters lacking any sort of real depth or legitimacy compared to their male counterparts. Scenes involving male characters are longer and filled with more detail than scenes with women. Meursault spends a great deal of time with Marie, yet she still comes across as shallow and naive as compared to Raymond who is depicted as emotionally complex and manipulative.
For example, within the first scene Camus is able to show many emotional sides of Raymond. Firstly, Raymond is able to describe himself as not being “a bad guy, but I have a short fuse.” Secondly, he elucidates to a fight he had earlier in the day with his mistress’s brother where the guy “was asking for it.” Finally Raymond is able to manipulate Meursault into teaching his mistress a lesson (Camus, The Stranger, 30). Camus also describes Raymond as “a little on the short side, with broad shoulders and a nose like a boxer’s. He always dressed very sharp,” (Camus, The Stranger, 29). Camus puts a clear and concise depiction of Raymond together for the reader yet; this visual description is completely different and more complex when compared to the in complete articulation of Marie by Camus.
The reader is given a short explanation of Meursault’s main love interest, and the most information given describes her as “a former typist in our (Meursault’s) office whom I’d had a thing for at the time. She did too, I think,” and that she said, “I’m darker than you,” when the couple was drying off from their day at the beach. This unbalanced development could not simply occur by coincidence when whole pages are devoted to the short minutes shared by Meursault and Raymond and, the days Meursault and Marie spend together are summarized by a couple of meaningless paragraphs.
Camus’s staunch indifference is highlighted again through his comparing his relationship with two other characters. In the beginning of the novel the reader is enlightened that Meursault’s mother has recently died yet, Camus describes so eloquently through Meursault that “Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don’t know. I got a telegram from the home,” (Camus, The Stranger, 10). To most people a parent’s death, especially one’s mother, is a traumatic and life changing experience, but to an author who doesn’t have a strong affinity towards women, his main character’s mother’s death is just another day in the life. However, not all character’s deaths are this unimportant to Camus.
We see a new side to Camus when Meursault’s aged neighbor Salamano’s dog goes missing and then dies. The reader is treated to a surprising discharge of emotion from Camus while he describes Salamano’s relationship with the dog since his wife’s death, and Salamano’s pride towards his dog’s coat before it was taken away by disease.
Despite being a minor character within this novel, Salamano and his decrepit dog get more attention from Meursault and Camus than Meursault’s poor mother ever did. During his mother’s wake, and funeral, Camus finds any thing other than Maman to talk about including coffee, sleep, the caretaker’s life, and the heat. In contrast, when Salamano comes to Meursault to talk about his loss, although thoroughly annoyed, Meursault, and Camus, gives him time to express his grief and sorrow.
Time and again, Camus proves his indifference toward his female characters and through this literary failure; Camus makes them seem like toys, only useful for a limited amount of fun for a limited amount of time. This theory can also be linked to another aspect of misogyny, objectification.
A consistent theme to most misogynists’ message is that women are inherently less important than men. This usually translates into an objective representation of a woman and demeaning her to the position of an object usually demoted to a sexual purpose. Camus brings this theme into his work through Meursault and Marie’s relationship. From the start their whole connection is based on sex, Meursault describes his own reaction to an outfit Marie was wearing on one of their beach dates as he says, “I wanted her so bad when I saw her in that pretty red-and-white striped dress and leather sandals,” (Camus, The Stranger, 34). Camus never describes Marie’s personality or if Meursault actually liked Marie, it was all about the physical pleasure that she gave Meursault. When Marie asks Meursault to marry her, he says that he would have “accepted the same proposal from another woman, with whom I was involved in the same way,” (Camus, The Stranger, 40). Camus doesn’t have Meursault treat Marie as any more than an object, because that’s how he saw women in the world around him.
The final misogynistic tendency of Camus in The Stranger is the exploitation of women for sex and profit. Exploitation is the ultimate objectification, a person selling another person for profit is devoid of any morals and takes away any inherent dignities or rights a person possesses. However, Camus found no problem just dropping in Raymond’s assault and abuse of his Arab mistress. Raymond is a pimp, and he sells the bodies of women for his own profit. Unfortunately, when one of his mistresses tries to find someone who would actually treat her like a person and take care of her, Raymond finds this to be an issue and he beats her. Meursault describes the experience as hearing “thuds, and the woman scream(ing), but in such a way that the landing immediately filled with people,” (Camus, The Stranger, 35). Raymond treated this woman like she was his property, like it was his right to use her as he saw fit, and the way in which Camus nonchalantly depicts this situation is the epitome of his sexist inclinations. There is no consideration for the mistress, only a justification of Raymond’s actions as Meursault, who is supposed to be amoral, feels as though “she’d gotten her punishment now and he (Raymond) ought to be happy,” (Camus, The Stranger, 36). Camus’s misogynistic ideals transcend his real life sentiments, and transform his novel to a sexist and prejudiced work of literacy.
To answer the question previously posed, to be a misogynist there has to be an underlying and understood hatred of women, and Albert Camus proves that he is indeed a misogynist through The Stranger.

This novel proliferates the stereotype that women deserve to be marginalized or pushed to the side, because men are more interesting and more valuable to society. Camus’s misogyny prevents one half of his characters from making a lasting impression on his readers, and he creates no emotional connection to them other than a feeling of sympathy. This literary failure in turn inhibits Camus’s novel and artistry from reaching it’s own fullest

potential.