Meursault Quotes

At the end of the novel, Meursault is able to understand the meaning of life. He was able to do so because he was approaching death, which is an existentialist principle, death is the one certainty of life. Before, when his mother died or when he killed the Arab, he did not have any feelings. When he thought about his own life and that he was about to die, he accepted it. He realizes that one can truly enjoy their lives when they approach and accept death. The understanding of this allowed Meursault to be at peace with himself. With this being said, this novel was an unusually good book, which made me think. A majority of the book made me feel like the rest of society, which was not accepting Meursault's behavior although analyzing gave me

He has no initial reaction to the news of her death, and at her funeral service he did not bother to even see her before she was buried. His lack of emotion is evident in the very first lines of the book, “Mother died today. Or maybe it was yesterday, I don’t know.” This shows that Meursault is hardly caring for his mother. Society’s standards would result in him to be in absolute mourning and wanting to go as fast as possible to her body. This is not the only example of Meursault’s lack of emotion and care for factors in his life. He does not care for love and marriage after having intercourse with someone; the society standard at this time was to get married if two partners had intercourse. He does not care for promotion and career advancement when his boss offers him a better job opportunity; the standard at that time and right now is to pursue the best career possible. In these scenarios Meursault is living free from the chains, and does whatever he thinks is right to do. Eventually, society rejects him and his ways, and he gets in trouble with the law. He is judged by society and his ways are ridiculed, making Meursault appear to be a monster.

Not also that but Meursault is also constantly stubborn with others opinions and beliefs. It's not just the life of the main character, but it also views our lives as well. It can be cruel, unusual and rebellious if it’s not to society's laws and the absurdity of the human behavior has us doing these type of actions. The world and the point of being alive may not be entirely meaningless but conventional. Throughout the whole book, he is brutally honest about everything and his interpretation of virtues falls right into Camus’s category of his absurd ideology. Even though the author was an Existentialist, hes has more of an Absurdist thought put into his novel. Both of these beliefs are different yet the same because both relate to the point of being yourself. However, one rejects humanity and the other goes along with individual experiences and actions that are basically making your own

3. To what extent does Meursault accept his fate? How does he arrive at his final understanding of his situation, and how would you describe that understanding?

The prosecutor often refers to Meursault's behavior at his mother’s funeral. Since Meursault showed no sign of remorse at her funeral, it was used against him repeatedly in the case that would determine his fate. This court case put Meursault in such a difficult and lonely situation, “Everything was happening without my participation. My fate was being decided without anyone so much as asking my opinion...whatever interest you can get people to take in you doesn’t last long”(Camus 98). Prison is where Meursault begins and finds his enlightenment, he spends his time there mainly thinking about the life one can experience as a free man, in prison it's where Meursault's real character shows in the entire book. Due to this, it feels like Meursault is reborn to the readers. Prison and the court case bring out a side to Meursault that was never really shown in the book, he begins to defend himself against all, “What did other people’s deaths...What would it matter if he were accused of murder and then executed because he didn’t cry at his mother’s funeral”(Camus 121)? Both Siddhartha and Meursault go through solitude in different ways but end up revealing something about their character as if they are reborn, another step toward each of their enlightenments.

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.

Internal conflict - I believe that the internal conflict that Meursault suffered was that because of his goal to please only himself, he put himself into a terrible position against society. His life throughout the story, was full of judgment from others because of the decisions he would make. I believe that the real struggle that Meursault faced was that he could never come to terms with the fact that his decisions and actions made him stand out against society. During his trial, he couldn't understand why the prosecutor regarded him with so much hate. At the end of the novel, he finally accepts his

“ All I kept thinking about, over and over,was You can’t live forever; you can’t live forever.” (pg.40)

The author was saying that old age shouldn’t stop you from pursuing things in life, that you should fight against death. In your final days you should enjoy life and “burn and rave”, because before you know it, your life could be gone.

Meursault has no meaning in life, so in whatever circumstances he is currently in, he will eventually adapt to. He has no reason to change for how he is just for society to accept him. His surroundings, however, have definitely changed him. He is distant from his emotions and life’s surroundings. The setting of this quote is a symbol of Meursault’s true character.

In Part 1 of the novel, Meursault does not fully grasp the significance of life because of his absurdist way of life. Camus presents Meursault as a person who does not live life, but reacts to what life presents him. Meursault is incapable of understanding the metaphysics of the world due to his lack of emotions. The greatest understanding of Meursault is through his own mind; instead of being subjective, he is objective. “Behind them, an enormous mother, in a brown silk dress, and the father, a rather frail little man I know by sight” (22). His thoughts include “note-taking” details about his environment with an

The novel starts out with Meursault getting a telegram saying that his mother had died. He takes time off work to go to her funeral and completely fail to show the emotion that the reader expects to see of a son towards his recently passed mother. First and foremost, when he arrives, the coffin is

Although it seems like a heartless and ridiculous response to the subject matter, Meursault's existentialistic honesty makes him heroic. In a way, Meursault loves Marie, but his problem with communication is one of the root cause for his alienation because his response never satisfies the society.

At one point, he declines a job offer to go to Paris. Despite the fact that he'd be able to leave colonial Algeria for Paris, which would seem like a good life choice for many, he doesn't care for the offer. Meursault said that “people never change their lives, that in any case one life was as good as another and that [he] wasn't dissatisfied with [his] here at all” (41). Meursault shows himself not only be indifferent to things or people around him, but that he's also indifferent to his future as everything is the same to him. In his relationship with Marie, Meursault was indifferent to the idea of getting married to her. When asked about marriage and if he really loved Marie, he responded that “it didn't mean anything but that [he] probably didn't love her . . . that it didn't really matter and that if she wanted to, [they] could get married” (ibid). Here he was, saying that he didn't care if he got married. By doing this, he discarded his own ability to decide his future, and instead put it in the hands of someone else. In this respect, Meursault is also like the world, in that his future is decided by others, but unlike the world, Meursault has the ability to decide his future, but never takes the chance, because, like the world, he doesn't care.

In addition, Meursault cannot find a solid place in society. He lives alone due to the death of his mother. Society cannot accept the manner in which Meursault addresses his mother’s death. Since he thinks that “Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, [he doesn’t] know” (Camus 3), society believes that he does not care that his mother dies. Everyone judges him because he does not relate to the rest of the people. Meursault receives immense criticism at his trial concerning his murdering another man. At his trial, Meursault can “feel how much all these people [the jury] hated” (Camus 90) him. The jury does not commend him or even regard him with understanding about his mother’s death. Some people react to death without actually reacting to it; Meursault subconsciously chooses to do so but receives condemnation. Both characters experience isolation from society.