Existentialism In The Stranger By Albert Camus

The Stranger by Albert Camus focuses largely on the concept of absurdism. Camus uses family and personal relationships, or the lack of it thereof, to show the isolation that the main character, Meursault, undergoes in the novel and it’s effect on him overall. Camus utilizes the protagonists’ character development as a tool to further his plot of the novel. The absence of family and personal relationships tied in with the particular recurring topics of the novel are crucial in both the development of the protagonists’ characters as well as the plot as it affects the portrayal of the main character.

Albert Camus’s novel, The Stranger is regarded to the philosophical ideas of Existentialism, yet seems to also incorporate Absurdist tenets throughout the book that show ideals of being a unique type of individual with different actions that society disagrees with.

In Albert Camus novel, The Stranger (The Outsider), the main character Meursault displays a unique indifference to his surroundings and the world around him. It takes him a degree of time to come to terms with his indifference, but when he does he feels truly free from society's constricting bonds. He leads an apathetic lifestyle that is characterized by his constant lack of a definitive personality. Meursault wanders through life as if in a drunken stupor, living the life of a pleasure seeker. When he accepts his death he is relieved of the pressure of dealing with guilt and with relationships towards other people.

Meursault is an independent and absurd guy who refuses to lie about himself to save his life. At the beginning of the book he avoids conversation and showed existentialism. For example, when the caretaker asked him, why he doesn’t want to see his mother’s body, he just simply said “I don’t know”. Another reason is when he would say, “marriage, no marriage, who cares.” Towards the ending of the book he starts to open up. In order for him to realize how wrong he was, he had to suffer the consequences. Meursault states, “For everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone; I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate(2.5.165). “Meaning, he finally has awareness and is open-minded about his life.

Finding the meaning of life has been an endeavor undertaken by countless philosophers with almost no uniformity from their answers. Ranging from promises of eternal life, to the belief that life has no meaning at all, Albert Camus, a French philosopher, offers his own unique view on the matter. In Camus’ novel The Stranger, he uses the beach scene where Meursault, the main character, kills an Arab in order to signify that life definitely has a meaning at times, albeit with absurd implications.

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.

Albert Camus is considered one of the greatest existentialist writers of all time. However, although he was considered an existentialist writer, Camus never labeled himself as an existentialist. “No, I am not an existentialist”  (Albert Camus: Lyrical and Critical Essays, Vintage (1970)) Camus rejected in an 1945 interview, however in some of his literary works, some find that his writings are one of a true existentialistic thinker. Although many contrast these thoughts and believe that Camus was anything but a thinker of this philosophy, Camus is one of the main authors that people turn to research and read to understand the thinking of existentialism. One of his most famous books, The Plague, illustrates the need for a human to become an

Flat characters play a significant role in all novels. For instance, the brother of Raymond’s mistress is a key flat character. The Arab never grows throughout the novel; rather, he remains a stalker, stalking his prey, tempting a fight. Without the role of the Arab, Meursault, would never have gone to prison, and never be tried for murder.

The French philosopher Roland Barthes once said, “Literature is the question minus the answer” (Barthes 2). This statement hold true for most works of literature that explore a central question. According to Barthes, literature often raises a question, but leaves it up to the reader to determine the answer. The Stranger by Albert Camus is an excellent example of how a central question, “Is there value and meaning to human life?” is raised and left unanswered, resulting in different interpretations of the answer, depending on the viewpoint of the reader. Although the question is never explicitly answered, Camus offers perspectives on what French society regarded the answers to be, such as connections with others, elusion to freedom, and faith in religion and God.

What is equally absurd is that Meursault remains passive and detached over the course of a year of interrogations, and despite the pessimistic nature of his situation, he is able to feel a sense of comfort and belonging within the system trying to condemn him. Ironically, those witness testimonies that sought to free him prove to be the most damaging, and the religious people who surround him and purport to love all men unconditionally persecute him for his lack of belief. Everyone is astonished that Meursault has no emotions about the murder --no sense of remorse or desire to repent. Most men in his position find

Life is often interpreted by many as having meaning or purpose. For people who are like Meursault, the anti-hero protagonist of Albert Camus' The Stranger, written in 1942, the world is completely without either. Camus' story explores the world through the eyes of Meursault, who is quite literally a stranger to society in his indifference to meaning, values, and morals. In this novel, this protagonist lives on through life with this indifference, and is prosecuted and sentenced to die for it. Through Meursault and his ventures in The Stranger, Camus expresses to the reader the idea that the world is fundamentally absurd, but that people will react to absurdity by attaching meaning to it in vain, despite the fact that the world, like

Many people often base their opinions on a person by judging his whole life in general and his attitude towards life without caring about who the person really is deep down inside. This unfair reasoning can occur in the courtroom when people are put on trial and the judge and the jury must delve into the life of the accused and determine if he is a hazard to society. Occasionally, the judge and jury are too concerned with the accused’s past that they become too biased and give an unfair conviction and sentencing. In his novel, The Stranger, Albert Camus uses the courtroom as a symbol to represent society that judges the main character, Meursalt, unfairly to illustrate how society forms opinions based on one’s past.

The novel The Stranger, by Albert Camus, translated by Matthew Ward, follows the story of a man, Meursault, and how his emotionless way of living and his one grave mistake ends up killing him through a court of law. Throughout his journey, there is tension in him, and between him and other people and groups. This tension is represented throughout this novel with the motif is heat. And as tension can grow and is part of everyday life, it is part of Meursault’s as well. Furthermore, through tension and it growing, it can result in a conflict of multiple varieties. This motif comes up at scenes such as the trial in the courtroom, the conflict on the beach with the Arabs, and the magistrate and his heated argument. And due to Camus specific placement of the motif during these scenes, it also foreshadows conflict and trouble throughout the novel. Camus’ motif of heat shows a tension between opposing sides to foreshadow various types of conflict which demonstrate the theme that tension leads to conflict.

Widely recognized for philosophical writings as a French essayist and playwright, Albert Camus is a major contributor to exploring the absurd in modern Western literature. Characterized by highlighting the human condition, Camus’ writing style focuses on the everyday lives and inner psyche of individuals in both ordinary and extraordinary circumstances. Such a character-driven writing style is most notably displayed in his 1946 work, The Stranger, a tale of an emotionally-detached man known as Meursault, who lives in French-colonized Algiers during the intermission of the two World Wars. Consisting of two parts—The Stranger first explores his daily life as a free man, and in the second, delves more into the character’s own philosophy as Meursault contemplates during his remaining time in jail. At its core, the story explores the relationships and interactions of the odd Meursault through the character’s inner monologue and dialogue with those around him. The story itself is very ambiguous in its’ nature, and the idea of contemplating the meaning of life and purpose is prevalent throughout The Stranger. Evidently, Camus writes Meursault as a man who believes that life has no meaning, and therefore people are free to do as they please. To supplement the protagonist’s view, the author also presents Meursault alongside various personalities of key supporting characters, each with their own unique personality, and differing outlooks on life. Doing so thus enables Camus to get readers to contemplate about meaning through multiple perspectives. Stylistically, through many devices that emphasize diction, imagery, and story themes. Ultimately, The Stranger is a way for Camus to convey that there are multiple ways to perceive the meaning of life, using Meursault to directly project a different view than what readers are used to. Surely, with the intent of crafting a protagonist so strange, that Meursault becomes comparable to other characters; less so as a reflection of what the author personally believes the meaning of life is, but more of what such exploration of the idea could be.

“Life has to be given a meaning because of the obvious fact that it has no meaning.” Henry Miller