The Stranger by Albert Camus follows the story of a man named Meursault, who received notice that his mother had passed away. Meursault was not emotionally connected to his mother, and his reaction is not what the reader would expect, as he did not seem to care at all. Therefore, the day after attending his mother’s funeral, Meursault goes to the beach and meets up with his girlfriend, Marie. After the beach, Meursault and Marie go to a movie and spend the night together. When he returns home from work the next day, Meursault runs into his neighbor, Raymond, who beats his mistress. Later in the story, Meursault, Marie, and Raymond go to a beach house, which is owned by Raymond’s friend, Masson. At the beach, Masson, Raymond, and Meursault …show more content…
Unlike round characters, flat characters do not change, but flat characters can be used to develop round characters.
Marie, Meursault’s girlfriend, is extremely emotionally attached to Meursault, and this is a weakness. Marie is dependent on Meursault as her source of happiness, even though Meursault does not show that he really cares about Marie. When asked if he loved her, he replied “it didn’t mean anything and that [he] probably didn’t love her” (41). Most people would despise being in a relationship in which they’re unloved by their partner. However, Marie stays with Meursault, even if he does not actually love her. Marie staying in a relationship where she is not even loved, is the result of her being emotionally attached to someone who does not feel the same way about her. However, Marie’s neediness also allows her to be extremely loyal. Loyalty is normally a strength, but Marie takes it to another level and makes her loyalty a weakness. Marie visited Meursault in prison and assures him”[he will] get out [of prison] and [they will] get married” (75). Even though Meursault murders someone, goes to jail and is sentenced to death, Marie stays with him almost all the way to the end of Meursault’s life. Most people would not be comfortable getting married to a murderer. However, Marie still wanted to get married to Meursault because
While reading The Stranger I noticed that traits that Albert Camus character depicts in the book are closely related to the theories of Sigmund Freud on moral human behavior. Albert Camus portrays his character of Meursault as a numb, emotionless person that seems to mindlessly play out his role in society, acting in a manner that he sees as the way he’s supposed to act, always living in the moment with his instincts driving him, and if the right circumstance presents itself the primal deep seeded animal will come out. I believe that most of the character’s traits fall under Freud’s notion of the Id and Ego mental apparatus, and don’t believe that his idea of the super-ego is represented in this book.
I answered the same way I had last time, that it didn’t mean anything but that I probably didn’t love her. ‘So why marry, then?’ she said. I explained to her that it didn’t really matter and that if she wanted to, we could get married.” (Camus 41) A typical man when wanting to get married, shows love and affection towards her and cares if him and the woman get married. Society’s standards say that a successful marriage includes love, trust, sacrifice and communication. If Meursault and Marie were to wed, their relationship would lack all of these valued fundamentals. He wouldn’t be marrying her because he wants to and loves her, he would just being doing it because she wants to. Through all the confusion, they are still engaged to be married and she stays loyal to throughout the entire trial. She even comes to visit him once before he is executed. “… Marie shouted to me that I had to have hope. I said, ‘Yes.’ I was looking at her as she said it and I wanted to squeeze her shoulders through her dress. I wanted to feel the thin material and I didn’t really know what else I had to hope for other than that.” (Camus 75) Although he thought life was meaningless and temporary, he did have some sort of feelings for her, though he probably didn’t want to admit it. He didn’t realize it but Marie made an impact in his life.
The Stranger The Stranger exhibits a society that has confined itself with a specific set of social standards that dictate the manner in which people are supposed to act. This ideology determines the level of morality, and how much emphasis should placed on following this certain "ethical" structure. Albert Camus's main character, Meursault, is depicted as a nonconformist that is unwilling to play society's game. Through Meursault's failure to comply with society's values and conform to the norm, he is rejected and also condemned to death by society.
The Article “A Stranger in Strange Lands” written by Lucille P. McCarthy is an examination of the writing process. This article follows a college student through a twenty-one month study to determine how the students writing ability is affected as he transitions from one classroom to another. Focusing on specific writing processes in different types of classrooms,this article hopes to uncover the importance and effect of writing towards a specific audience within a particular genre and to offer a better understanding to how students continue to learn to write throughout college.
Many memories for young children involve a special individual who made specific events during their childhood, vividly stand out to them as adults. In “Tender Stranger” written by Phillip Lopate, a memory is told from the perspective of a young boy. He is on his way to school when he suddenly bumps into a lawyer on the street corner. In “Novella” written by Robert Hass, the memory is from a young girl who develops a friendship with an elderly gentleman who lives in a cabin deep in the woods. The young boy meets the lawyer on the busy sidewalk and never sees him again, while the young girl forms an extensive friendship as she and the elderly man visit often. The vivid childhood memories of these two relationships play a significant role in the character’s life, whether it was a short encounter or a long lasting friendship.
Marie’s feelings for Meursault are almost admirable. Even in jail she continues to put a smile on her face for him and visit him. She must really love him. His visit with her is odd because he cares more of what's going on around him than his time with her. It’s odd because he says he misses Marie and sex so much but he doesn’t even take the time to really look at her. I keep wondering where Raymond is. After all this was his fight to begin with, in my opinion he should have been the first visitor for Meursault.
Albert Camus creates a series of characters in The Stranger whose personality traits and motivations mirror those that are overlooked upon by the average man. Camus develops various characters and scenarios that show true humanity which tends to have been ignored due to the fact of how typical it has become. Camus incorporates abominable personality traits of the characters, variety, consistency, and everyone’s fate.
“The Little Stranger” is a 2009 gothic novel written by Sarah Waters. It is a ghost story set in a dilapidated mansion in Warwickshire, England in the 1940s. This novel features a male narrator, a country doctor who makes friends with a family with faded fortunes left simply with a very old estate that is crumbling around them. The stress of reconciling the state of their finances with the familial responsibility of keeping the estate coincides with perplexing events which may or may not be of supernatural origin, culminating in tragedy.
His boss tried to give him a promotion to Paris, but Meursault did not care if he got it or not. His boss is so infuriated that he tells Meursault he “had no ambition” (Camus 41). Meursault lacks ambition not only in the workplace but also in life. He does not care and cannot form an opinion on many things in his life due to his detached nature. He is content with being comfortable and did not “see any reason to change his life” (Camus 41). This attitude is also prevalent in his relationships. He is undetermined and does not care about Marie other than on a physical level. Marie proposes to Meursault but to him “it didn’t really matter” (Camus 41) because he “probably didn’t love her” (Camus
None of this deters Marie, for she is strong and satisfied with where she is in her relatiioinship even though she gets nothing emotionally from Meursault. Marie learns just how to be with Meursault, she builds herself up and one day decides that she will not allow Meursault’s little emotional displays stop her from spending the rest of her life with him. Another thing that makes Marie stick out, is that she was the one who ‘proposed’ to him. Sure, there was never any formal proposal, no dropping to one knee or hiding the ring in some angle foodcake, but she was the first to even remotely mention marriage in the relationship. Set in the early 1940’s, the time proves that the woman was still the less superior in any relationship. Never was it socially acceptable to be this forward in a relationship, never could the woman bring up
In the novel “The Stranger,” by Albert Camus, the main character’s life is turned upside down when he finds himself, armed with a gun, standing over a man who’s been shot five times in the chest. Throughout the book, Meursault’s reactions to the things that happen in his life and the actions he makes are taken by surprise by his friends, acquaintances, and eventually the public. At first, Meursault seems like a normal man who has a job, faces losses in his life, and builds new relationships with people. On the contrary, his thoughts are viewed as strange to the reader because of how little he seems to care about the people around him. The main character’s vital flaw is his lack of emotions; this makes himself unable to evolve into a dynamic character, thus he remains a flat character. Meursault’s thoughts as an individual change from the beginning of the book to the end because of the crime he commits and the relationships he shares with people.
She is also used to show that anybody can be somewhat selfish if it suits them. Although the readers are given little information about her, she is often described as laughing and her face is “like a flower,” (Camus 37). The given imagery paints a picture of a cheerful and innocent woman. The way that she is viewed by Meursault is not much different except for the fact that along with this cheerfulness, he sees her as someone who is not overly unique. He values her for her body and the times that they have been together. This fact comes to light when Marie asks him to marry her. His replies by saying that “we could do if she wanted to,” (Camus 44). His noncommittal response worries Marie and she asks if Meursault loves her to which he replies no in the same indifferent tone. Meursault’s acceptance of the marriage proposal is an excellent example of his disinterest. He does not love this woman and yet he agrees to marry her even though he doesn’t believe that marriage is a serious thing. In this moment, it is almost as if the roles of the two are reversed. Meursault is willing to do something that he does not believe in to make Marie happy. Marie is concerned that he does not love her but still wants to marry him. It is almost as if for a few minutes Meursault is being selfless until Marie asks if he would accept if “the same proposal had come from another woman, with whom [he] had a similar relationship,” (Camus 45). When he replies with an easy “naturally”, Marie wonders out loud whether she loves Meursault. His use of the word naturally shows that this is not a special occurrence. To Meursault, marriage means nothing, but pleasure is everything. It is as if the act of keeping pleasure around is natural to Meursault. He could have answered her question with a simple yes, but the specific word “naturally” shows something about his character. An image of a man shrugging his
Marie asks Meursault if he will marry her, and he says he does not care one way or the other. If marriage is what she wants, they can be engaged. When asked again if he loves her, he says he doesn’t think so. Marie claims that Meursault is a very strange man and that is why she wants to marry him. She tells him that she cannot have dinner that night. Meursault does not seem to care and does not ask her why. This makes her
The Stranger. He still sat in the back of the bus, gazing thoughtfully at his phone. Steve walked down the bus aisle to the same seat he had sat in the previous day, and just then, as he sat down, he heard a resounding ringtone from the back seat,
Art is the expression of human’s creative skill and imagination, art pass through society, and it reflects social life by shaping. Art, such as literature, dance, painting, calligraphy, and music. James Baldwin, a famous African- American author of “Stranger in the village.” He discussed the rank and relationship between the Blacks and Whites in the society. Also, Baldwin went to the village in Leukerbad, and lived with the White Europeans. This essay is about the the experience and history of him. Teju Cole was the one who had read the “Stranger in the village” and he wrote what he felt about James Baldwin’s essay. Their opinions were opposite, but I think there is no right or wrong.