Meursault In The Stranger, By Albert Camus

In the book The Stranger, by Albert Camus, Meursault is a commonly misunderstood character due to his inhumanities. He does not emote in the same way that most people do, and seems to have an extremely careless attitude towards the things going on around him. In the beginning of the story, we learn that Meursault’s mother has just passed away, and yet Meursault does not show any signs of grief. Another time that Meursault’s abnormalities become lucid is when he is speaking to his girlfriend, Marie, and has a very passive approach to the idea of marriage, which to most people is a major, life-altering decision. Many people say that through the course of the story, in the second half, Meursault develops and learns how to truly “live”. However,

Meursault introduces Marie to the story in a rather casual way, by saying that she is “a former typist in our office whom I’d had a thing for at the time” (19). However, not long after, they seem to be in a very serious relationship, and it seems as if they have known eachother for years, so it is curious that they supposedly had not seen each other since they used to work together. Marie and Meursault seem to have a very physical relationship, and we never really see them connect on an emotional level with each other. This could be one reason why Meursault is never able to share his feeling towards her with her, because maybe he is only attracted to her physically, and not on a more personal level; “A minute later she asked me if I loved her. I told her it didn’t mean anything but that I didn’t think so. She looked sad” (35). Meursault uses nearly this exact same line when he is speaking of Maman; “I probably did love Maman, but that didn’t mean anything” (65), which could possibly show that he really is not capable of loving, if he can not even say that he feels love for his mother. Maybe it is not only that Meursault can’t express his feelings, but maybe he really does not have feeling the way that most people do. Later on in the story, Marie “came by to see me and asked me if I wanted to marry her. I said it didn’t make any difference to me and that we could if she wanted to” (41). Meursault’s indifference about something as life changing as marriage really proves how unusual he is. For most people, marriage is something that is a huge life decision, and something you dream of all of your life. I becomes clear that Meursault does not realize the big deal about marriage at all when he says; “Then [Marie] pointed out that marriage was a serious thing. I said ‘No.’ She stopped talking for a minute and looked