Meursault's Use Of Existentialism In The Stranger By Albert Camus

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n the stranger, Albert Camus’s use of symbols teaches the readers that people didn’t like the different (not having religious beliefs). Throughout the whole book Meursault always mentioned something about the sun like it was a person he didn’t like. Also he didn’t believe in God he believed that the world was random. He’s somewhat you call an existentialist.
“The sun was beginning to bear down on the earth and it was getting hotter by the minute.” (pg 15) A few minutes after the funeral Meursault was getting irritated by sun more and more as time went by. Meursault is very detached when it comes to his feelings he never showed them. For example during his mother funeral Meursault didn’t show no emotion he stated “It occurred to me that anyway one more Sunday was over, that Maman was buried now, that I was going back to work, and that, really, nothing had changed.” (pg 24) He was saying that although his mother had died nothing really would change and that this tragedy wouldn’t change his daily routine at all. That quote was very important because it shows you how distant and indifferent Meursault was. Furthermore the society that he was living in believed that one should mourn over death and because he didn’t mourn that only made him an outsider or a monster. You only have one mother so why would Meursault act so calm and okay when at his mother funeral. Also at the very beginning of the book Meursault didn’t even know the day that his mother had died on he said “Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe. I don’t know.” (pg 1) By reading this quote it is understood that he didn’t care how or when his mother died he just accepted that she was gone. This story was told from the perspective of Meursault which was told without any emot...

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...is life would become meaningless.” (pg 69) He’s saying without believing in God it would mean your life doesn’t have a purpose of living. We all know that Meursault didn’t believe this statement because of his actions and words. Throughout the trial Meursault comes to understand that his disappointment to understand or catch importance in his own life has left him helpless to others, who will enforce such significance for him. Until this argument, Meursault has carelessly wandered from minute to minute, lacking the enthusiasm or skill to observe his existence as a story with an earlier, existing, and upcoming. Meursault’s own lawyer not only inflicts yet another manufactured understanding of Meursault’s existence, but even goes so far as to distribute this understanding in the first person, effectually stealing Meursault’s own fact of vision when making the dispute.

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