Essay On The Stranger

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Alec Rosen
Mr.Brown
World Literature trk­1
February 2015
Meursault’s Emotional Changes
At the beginning of the novel Meursault shows much indifference to the life that he has led. As readers on the first line of the novel we hear that his mother has passed and he acts as if nothing has changed.
"Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don't know. I got a telegram from the home: 'Mother deceased. Funeral tomorrow. Faithfully yours.' That doesn't mean anything. Maybe it was yesterday" (3). Meursault lives his life as passively as possible, looking for a reason to move on. As tensions rise his attitude toward life becomes what makes civilians believe that Meursault is a psychopath.
In part one Meursault uses different ways to distance himself as much as possible from what has happened to his mother and decides not to deal with what has happened. He falls asleep when he feels as if his head becomes heavy from bearing all the information. That is slowly shredding up his insides. When he does not feel tired he will separate himself from a crowd and spend a large amount of his time smoking and observing the space around him. This is shown when he is on the balcony and later at the beach house. "It occurred to me that anyway one more
Sunday was over that Maman was buried now, that I was going back to work, and that, really, nothing had changed." (24). Portrayed here Meursault looks for events to be the fuel in his life not for him to fuel the events. With him unable to take control of his life he becomes susceptible of urges that are probably powered by his eternal anger about his mother. As this is happening

psychologically to him, he simultaneously is driven by coming to the defense of Raymond. Who could forget the sun was so powerful as well making it hard for him to think straight and ultimately drives Meursault to kill the arab.
Though there are many hiccups in the way Meursault perceives the world, there is proof that he was improving. His relationship with Marie showed that clearly."For the first time maybe, I really thought I was going to get married" (50). There was also proof in the way he showed sympathy to Salamano when his dog went missing. To an extent he was able to live his life and make connections with people. Clearly his pain worked in waves because there was many times where Meursault did achieve bliss. After he commit the murder he was finished because no court would side with a man that does not have emotions in check. It did
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