Absurdity And Subjectivity In Meursault's No Exit And The Stranger

Meursault's character is the determining factor in his conviction and sentencing. His social rebellion is deemed immoral and abominable. The reader and the novel's characters both try to rationalize Meursault's actions in order to give his life meaning. But according to Meursault, life is meaningless and consequently needs no justification.

In The Stranger by Albert Camus, the murder committed by Meursault is questionably done with no reason. Although the entirety of the second part is spent in society’s attempts to find a cause, Meursault has a durable existential mentality that proves that even he knows that there is no true reason for the crime. Through the use of light and heat imagery and diction in The Stranger, Albert Camus comments on the duality of society trying to find a cause for the murder and Meursault defying this because of his existential mentality. These elements heighten Meursault’s negative outlook on life by

In The Stranger, Albert Camus describes the life of the protagonist, Meursault, through life changing events. The passage chosen illustrates Meursault’s view during his time in prison for killing the Arab. In prison, one can see the shifts in Meursault’s character and the acceptance of this new lifestyle. Camus manipulates diction to indicate the changes in Meursault caused by time thinking of memories in prison and realization of his pointless life. Because Camus published this book at the beginning of World War II, people at this time period also questions life and death similar to how Meursault does.

The conviction of Meursault represents another main point of absurdism, that life is precious. It only takes forty five minutes for an entire jury to unanimously decide to send Meursault to the guillotine, which is unreasonable. Camus is trying to point this out as one of society’s wrongdoings. The prosecutor's argument had appealed to the jury's emotions and society’s standards rather than reason. If the jury had not felt the emotions that were supposed to influence their decision, the prosecutor's argument would have seemed completely irrational. In a rational world, Meursault's emotions regarding his mother or her funeral would not have influenced his verdict. Meursault commits a crime against an Arab, while Raymond, who had also done so earlier in the book, did not get into any trouble. He would still be found guilty, but only for the crime he committed. This would have definitely lightened his sentence; however, Meursault is sentenced to death. Camus proves the court’s hypocrisy and shows how human

The solitude of man with the innate endeavoring nature to incessantly find passion, be fruitful, and embrace the tangibles causes us to lose focus of the scornful end. The condemnation we find ourselves in subsequent to the impotent attempts to satiate our inexplicable questions, is the puncture to our ideal notion . The disenchantment the truth of our obscure being offered is masqueraded with the absurdity through which we seamlessly wander through this life. The irrefutable desire to numb the conscious is the bittersweet burden which we carry to suppress the abyss of disparity which we are floating amidst. Monsieur Meursault in Albert Camus’ The Stranger is the blaring anomaly. Fortifying himself through his indifferent nature and blunt honesty, Meursault is ostracized. Deemed with a psychosis he finds comfort in the unruly inescapable solace of life, death, which morphs into his gradual declination. The sun tracing his unusual circumstances, catalyzing his imminent reactions provides itself as the only paradigm to symbolize Meursault. The intricacies which unfold are reiterated by the Sun which juxtapose the indigenous contingency to find meaning. Meursault’s paradoxical compel and abhorrence to the sun highlights the idea that the what we choose to learn may not be abiding in beauty. Our choice in this duality sets forth the invitation to introspection offering its only absolute form through our own willingness. Meursault understanding himself is bonded to the sun

In his novel, The Stranger by Albert Camus, translated by Matthew Ward, irony within the protagonist’s ( Meursault ) contrasting perception of the human condition is used to illustrate and invoke the reader to question the contradictory nature of societal expectations. His indifferent and unprecedented reactions to experiences - relative to the characters that Camus laid before him - aid in displaying the absurdity of a world constrained by the chains of conventional wisdom. The contrasting nature of Meursault's demeanor in defying conventional wisdom in experiences such as love and death not only reveals the underlying hypocrisy of the human condition but further illustrates the arbitrary essence of defining a human life.

Meursault is truthful to himself and others throughout The Stranger. Unlike most, he doesn’t feel it necessary to lie in order to make others feel better. He is truthful, regardless of whether or not the truth may hurt. For example, in chapter four Marie asked Meursault if he loved her. Instead of lying to her or giving a vague answer Meursault told her that he probably didn’t love her, but it wasn’t important anyway.

In the novel, The Stranger by Albert Camus, Meursault the protagonist, becomes drawn into a “senseless” murder that has to face the absurdity of life and because of his actions, Meursault is presented as a danger due to his lack of “morality” to society. Meursault who is not able to take control of his life but respond to what life offers him believes in the simplicity of life. He tries to understand the living through logic and objectivity, which ultimately turns futile, as he himself cannot maintain proper control over his thoughts and emotions. From the interactions between Marie, to the murder of the Arab, and the meeting with the Chaplain, Meursault overcomes his indifferent views to form an opinion about what life really means. The central theme presented by Camus is how the threat of mortality becomes a catalyst for understanding the significance of life.

In Albert Camus’ The Stranger, Meursault is seen as a very unique character, but not in a good way. Throughout the novel, he continually fails to show normal human emotions to things like his mother’s death, Marie’s love, and the man he killed. Most people in his town, along with the reader at first, are not able to reason out his actions but as the final events of the novel unfold, the reader begins to see Meursault in a different light.

In addition, Meursault’s sensory experience of life, his physical pleasures and in-the-now perspective, is a demonstration of living life to the fullest. The absurdist must live life passionately, putting all of one’s weight into existence by not wasting time or energy on the ethereal or ephemeral. The fact that Meursault does not want to think about religion, even as he awaits execution, shows how the ideal absurdist would live life: loyal to one’s own being until the end – not to a father in the sky, or to an abstract hope. Meaning of one’s life must come from one’s own creative efforts. Meursault’s indifference to spiritual matters – and even sensory matters that are in the distant past and are therefore unimportant to him – is used to emphasize the passion for the present that Camus decided the absurd hero should have. So it is not so much that Meursault is totally indifferent, he is just indifferent to things outside of the now.

Camus describes in detail the street scenes yet never does Meursault become involved in them. Meursault is distant from the messiness of plans, ambitions, desires, hatreds, even love. Marie's protestations of love only puzzle him. When she asks him if he wishes to marry her he agrees only because he sees no real reason to refuse. He helps in Raymond's nefarious schemes for equally bland reasons, and also because Raymond plies him with food, drink, and cigarettes. He is even distant from his own trial. It interests him because he has never seen a trial before.

Both Meursault’s lawyer and the prosecutor create explanations for Meursault’s crime that are based on reason and logic. The prosecutor even claims to have figured out the intent behind Meursault’s actions saying, “I have retraced for you the course of events which led this man to kill with full knowledge of his actions”(100). However, rationalizing behavior only serves to deny the alarming idea that the world is completely random. Therefore, Meursault’s trial shows absurdity and society’s futile attempt to impose rationality on every aspect of the universe.

In “The Stranger” by Camus, Meursault’s actions throughout the story can be summed up in one word, absurd.

distant at his mother’s funeral and he was distant with Marie and he was distant with the

In The Stranger, Albert Camus allows the main character to tell the story in order to give the reader an experience of his own. Obviously, with a novel also comes language, which Camus incorporates cleverly as a way to indirectly illustrate Meursault’s thoughts about certain situations. Although the novel represents a postmodern setting, the author shifts the overall meaning. In The Stranger, Camus applies a unique literary style as a power that deflects blame from Meursault, the antiheroic character. In order to disclaim the fault of Meursault, Camus incorporates several instances in which he leaves a greater sense of authority to nonliving objects, while further drawing attention away from the main character. Based on the implication of