"The Stranger" - Meursault's Trial Essay

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

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

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.

Although Meursault is the title character and narrator of Albert Camus’ short novel The Stranger, he is also a somewhat flat character. His apparent indifferent demeanor may be a convenience to Camus, who mainly wanted to display his ideas of absurdism. And as a flat character, Meursault is not fully delineated: he lacks deep thought and significant change. His purpose is that of a first-person narrator whose actions embody the absurd, even before he has any awareness of the fact. Since Meursault is embodied absurdism, it is not necessary that he be hyperaware of his thoughts and intentions. His truth has already been built into his character by the

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

French author Albert Camus’s novel L’Étranger from 1942 is certainly a brilliant philosophical novel which tells the story of a French Algerian man Meursault. Meursault is a character who is indeed hard to analyse completely and is faced with many obstacles in this novel which help us as readers scrape the surface of his personality and outlook on life. In this essay I will further study how the behaviour and attitudes of Meursault lead to his condemnation to death at the end of this novel.

This easy-going, pleasant hedonism is interrupted permanently by Meursault's murder of the Arab on the beach. Not only is he incarcerated, but also he must examine the reality behind the illusion of his trial and, ultimately, of his life. Introspection has not been his metier. It takes him a while to realize that the judge, the jury, the journalists, even his own lawyer, do not wish him well. Meursault finally realizes that he is going to be convicted, not because he killed an Arab but because he did not mourn his mother's death.

Furthermore, the prosecutor's exclaim in this passage is crucial to the change in Meursault's consistent nonchalant tone. Since, accusation created an uncomfortable atmosphere which made Meursault “realized that things weren’t going well for me” (16). This symbolizes Meursault's lack of

In Meursault’s world, no action needs reasons to explain them. The irrationality of his actions versus the need for others to justify it through moral lenses exemplifies absurdity. In Myth of Sisyphus, Camus writes, “…absurdity springs from a comparison…it bursts from a comparison between an action and the world that transcends it” (“Myth” 10). Absurdity comes when the society tries to explicate an action or an idea that’s not ‘usual’ or ‘normal.’ To Camus, however, there is no ‘normal’ and ‘usual,’ because the universe’s irrationality cannot be explained and categorized. This belief resides within Meursault’s only two active interactions with the universe: his relationship with Marie and his killing of an Arab. When Marie asks him why he wishes to marry her, he writes, “I explained to her that it didn’t really matter and that if she wanted to, we could get married” (The Stranger, 41). Between marrying and not marrying Marie, there is no change and importance to Meursault’s life. In society’s effort to justify marriage, the couple is expected to love each other and the situation Meursault is

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

The courtroom portrays Meursalt as an appalling man for enjoying himself the day after his mother’s funeral. The broad statement said by the prosecutor shows that society does not allow one to have any entertaining moments after a time of repentance because it is thought to be disrespectful. A quick rebuttal by Meursalt’s lawyer helps realign the trial so that it is actually focusing on why they are having the trial in the first place by saying, ““Come now, is my client on trial for burying his mother or for killing a man?” The spectators laughed.” (96). The trial never focuses on why Meursalt killed the Arab man and no one ever bothers to make any real efforts to discover his motives. This reveals that the courtroom is more interested in the type of person Meursalt is and how he can be a danger to society than the death of the Arab. The courtroom judges Meursalt as a heartless man with the only intention of killing a man because he felt like it, yet neither ever proves the killing of the Arab, not even in their closing speeches.

The characters observed in Albert Camus’s book, The Stranger, are human; they aren’t anything more or anything less. Every human is cruel and unusual in one way or the other. People are inhumane to each other and make irrational decisions, but they are still considered human. Characters like Raymond and the magistrate exhibit these traits. From the view of people, remaining completely objective to any given subject is impossible. There always is bias and opinion in their thought process. However, Meursault is not every person. His decisions are impulsive, based purely on facts and his surroundings. People cannot understand Meursault because he can take everything at face value with only himself as the center of relativity; no one else can do that. People like the priest try to understand it but cannot, so they try changing Meursault instead. Others like Raymond take advantage of it. They all are indifferent towards Meursault’s understanding. Meursault is seen as the absurdity of the world because he sees the discrepancies of other people’s lives head-on by being objective to their actions, behaviors, and beliefs while remaining steadfast towards his own reality.

The point of view in the book is first person, which allows the audience to understand Meursault’s thoughts and opinions. We are able to hear that he feels no remorse for any of this actions and even thinks of death as something trivial for it is part of everyday life. I feel that if the story wasn’t in first person the story would not be renown as a classic. For without the narrator’s perspective Camus’ book would not be known for describing the human condition. The central