The Stranger By Albert Camus Essay

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In The stranger the author Albert Camus creates a main character Meursault who is very different from other people. Rather than operating as an emotional person in the world he mostly just responds to physical things and is highly sensitive to them. Emotions are not a part of who he is. As a result he is unlike most people. When he as a different person that he is comes into conflict with a world that cares deeply about social norms it makes us aware of how absurd our society can be and sheds light on some serious problems within it. There is no doubt that Meursault shot and killed a man. However we know that it only happened because of his extreme sensitivity to the Sun. On the beach where the killing takes place Meursault ends up standing across from the man who stabbed his friend but the only reason he was there was that he was trying to “escape the sun” (Camus 57). He had no intention of harming anyone. In fact he says that “as far as [he] was concerned the whole thing was over (Camus 58). …show more content…

Even when he is directly involved in events, he’s unable to get too caught up in them. When his mother died he didn’t even try to mourn her. Meursault refused to accord himself with custom, and maintains his freedom by doing what strikes him as appropriate at any given moment. This includes smoking and showing indifference at his mother’s funeral. Another example can be when Marie asked him to marry her. He explains to her that he doesn’t love her but he’d marry her anyways because it didn’t really make a difference to him. Meursault also sums up his absurd worldview, forcefully stating that nothing really matters, that we all live and we all die, and what we do before we die is ultimately

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