At the pillars of human experience lie fear, joy, sadness, and love- a spectrum of emotions often referred to as the rudiments of life. Correspondingly, in The Stranger, Albert Camus commits an unsuspecting man to matters of marriage, abuse, and death, leaving the reader dangling for a passionately emotional response from the narrator. However, Mersault forcefully detaches himself from our expectations and challenges society by seeking fulfillment on its outskirts. Through his criminal ordeals, Mersault demonstrates how society often punishes those who lurk outside of its moral code, although any one of its principles holds, at best, relative truths.
• Society often punishes those who lurk outside of its moral code, although any one of its principles holds, at best, relative truths.
• No one life takes precedence over another, for each one is governed by chance and the meaning humans contrive from it is often arbitrary.
• Individuals are prone to wage wars against indifference, although an acceptance of the world’s passivity often leads to a sense of fulfillment beyond that of religion or social justice.
• Acknowledging the absurd means also accepting human frailty, an awareness of our limitations, and the fact that we cannot help wishing to go beyond what is possible.
STRUCTURE:
- two equal parts, highlighting central shift in Mersault’s life
- strict focus on deaths in sequential order with Maman’s funeral, murder of Arab, and death sentence
- episodic chapters
- minimalistic writing style- emotionally detached and objective, although first-person
- focus on narration, as a character-based Picaresque novel
- Ex. Lawyer talks in place of Mersault
