The Stranger: Meursault And The Meaning Of Life

He then proceeds to state “From the moment that human beings first stared into the sky, contemplated their place in the universe, and tried to create something that bettered the world and outlasted their lives, we have been purpose seekers.” This leads to the conclusion that purpose is believed to motivate people to do something that is beyond themselves as a person. Purpose; the reason for which something is done or created. No one can have a fulfilling life without feeling like they’ve lived because they followed something bigger than themselves. There are two types of purposes in life, (Which I’ll get into later.)

Diction shows the difference in Meursault’s views and beliefs as he spends more and more time in prison, adapts to his new lifestyle,

All the facts the prosecutor presents are valid and true, though unrelated to his case. From the prosecutor's point of view, Meursault is a “monster, a man without morals” (96). Even Meursault agrees that "what he was saying was plausible" (99). The reader, who knows all of Meursault’s thoughts, knows how absurd the prosecution’s accusations are. Throughout the trial, Camus explains that perception means everything, and there is no absolute truth.

Albert Camus’ The Stranger explores the philosophic ideology of existentialism in the character Meursault. Meursault is a man in the 1920s in French Algeria going through life seeing and acting through the lens of an existentialist. Without explicitly stating that he lives existentially, his life hits on many key characteristics of an existentialist. Perhaps the most defining of these key characteristics is that he does what he wants, because he can. He also does this because in existentialism there is emphasis on individual choice and freedom based on the assertion that there is no universal right and wrong. Meursault doesn’t always take into consideration what would be polite, or kind, but rather only

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.

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, therefore not only is his guilt dealt with at the murder trial, but his personal views and opinions come out as well. In fact, during the trial his lack of emotion about his mother’s death seemed to be of more importance than the murder he committed. From this it seems that truth is a crime and

Meursault, the protagonist in Albert Camus’s The Stranger, emerges as an existentialist hero as he is the figurative embodiment of the absurd. Meursault denies that the traditional religion is true, asserts that the unexamined life is worth living, and insists that life is absurd. It is argued that Meursault is unjustly sentenced to death, as he is condemned for his social mores rather than for murdering the Arab, however Meursault exhibits misogynistic attitudes toward women, perpetrated prejudicial acts against native people, and ruthlessly murders an indigenous person. With that said, was it really “wrong” to condemn him for his social mores if that would mean he is a sexist, racist, and a threat to society? Meursault suggests that atheism,

In Albert Camus’s novel The Stanger, Meursault possesses rare characteristics. In several instances, he is unable to make a decision for himself. Meursault does not see where it matters if he loves Marie or not. Next, he does not care about his mother’s death. When attending her funeral in Morengo, Meursault feels no emotion towards the passing of Maman. Then, he is overly honest and straight forward. Meursault chooses not to lie in a situation that would have saved his life. Although Meursault is the protagonist of the novel, his actions and qualities make him and anti-hero.

Our actions define our purpose and we are in control of all the choices we make because we have free will.

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

When Sartre says, “Hell is other people” (No Exit 45), Camus will remind him that there is no hell and none of it matters. Objectively, if hell means death, then to both protagonists in the philosophers’ works, hell is indeed other people. Meursault, the stranger in Camus’ book and to morality, passively observed his life until his inability to fit into a moral rubric sends him to a guillotine. His life and eventually his death describes absurdity and subjectivity, but never a moment does he appear to live them. On the other hand, Garcin, a sinner in hell confronts these existential values in Sartre’s No Exit. Unlike Meursault, he actively interacts with his emotions and the society. Yet no matter how different they are from each other, in an unbreakable system, it is other people who determine their fate. Actively and passively, Garcin and Meursault live their life only to find no escape. Through No Exit and The Stranger, Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus voice their similarities and differences in their philosophies of absurdity and subjectivity through their protagonists in forms of dialogues, decisions, and actions.

There is a reason we are born. The more important thing is how and when we realise it. We should be able to know the destiny of life until it’s too late. That last minute of life when you breathe your last breathe and realise you have lived your person ledge, you will leave this planet with a smile on your face with that happiness which you never felt in your whole life. There is a saying, "When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it." Yes, that invisible supernatural power will aid you to achieve it. It will plot your railway to the destiny. But that doesn’t mean you stay in your bed for all of your life and you will be there to your destiny. The reality is you should come on the field to combat every hardship that impedes you to be in your pursuit. With every courage and aplomb inside one should work hard. And most importantly losing hope should not be hobbling inside the

Albert Camus, born in colonized Algeria, a father to absurdism, and author of The Stranger confronts the philosophical themes of purpose, integrity, and passivity. The Stranger’s main character, Meursault, is a laconic man whose passive actions and brutal honesty lend to connections in his court trial. Those of which condemn him to execution. Meursault falls victim to his complete honesty, complete passivity, and disregard for the purpose of action. He is straightforward, and his actions usually follow his thoughts. Actions and decisions that most average people regard as serious, Meursault regards as arbitrary. Meursault’s exemplification of absurdism proves to not only lend to his characterization, but as a comfort in his death as well.