The Stranger Group Discussion Questions
Each student is expected to write his/her own answers and contribute meaningfully to the group. Students who are not meeting
that basic expectation will be removed from the group and given an alternative assignment (think timed writing).
First choose a group leader. The leader is responsible for keeping the discussion on topic. Furthermore, the person will answer to
Mrs. Beard if she hears (and she will) unrelated conversations.
Set 1: You have 25 minutes to discuss and answer questions 1-3. Each response should be well-developed and incorporate specific
evidence from the novel. Quote it.
1.
The sun is a complex symbol in this novel. Describe the dual role that it plays, noting particularly the role in the climactic
murder.
2.
How does The Myth of Sisyphus explore and expand the significance of The Stranger?
3.
Describe Meursault's moment of genuine revolt.
Set 2: Answer question #4. You have 10 minutes to discuss and answer. Again, quote the text as you support your assertion.
4.
In critiques of this book, many feel that Meursault is a man who makes no choices. Do you agree? Did he ever make a
choice? Provide support for your answer.
Set 3: Answer questions 5- 6 (25 minutes). You know the expectations.
5. Meursault’s outburst is perhaps the first time he exhibits powerful emotions, and marks a
significant change in Meursault’s view of life. Consider the following statement in
existentialist terms:
”I had lived my life one way and I could have lived it another…It was as if I had waited all this time and
for the first light of this dawn to be vindicated. Nothing, nothing mattered…Throughout the whole
absurd life I’d lived, a dark wind had been rising toward me from somewhere deep in my future, across
years that were still to come, and as it passed, this wind leveled whatever was offered to me at the time,
in years no more real than the ones I was living. What did other people’s deaths or a mother’s love
matter to me; what did his God or the lives people choose or the fate they think they elect matter to me
when we’re all elected by the same fate, me and billions of privileged people like him who also call
themselves my brothers?...Everybody was privileged. There were only privileged people” (121)
• What parts of the passage suggest existential choice?
• What is the dark wind?
• What is meant by the dark wind ‘leveling’ his decisions?
• What does Meursault mean when he says: “we’re all elected by the same fate”?
• How would being elected by this same fate make all people “privileged”?
• How does this relate to Meursault’s beliefs about an afterlife?
6. In Meursault’s conversation with the chaplain, the chaplain asks two key questions of
Meursault: “Have you no hope at all?” (117) and “Do you really love this earth as much
as all that?” (119). How do these questions, and especially the chaplain’s conception of
hope, lead to Meursault’s statement that the chaplain “wasn’t even sure he was alive,
because he was living like a dead man”? (120). How might Meursault’s view of hope (or
the lack thereof) be considered life affirming?
Set 4: Answer 7-9 (20 minutes). Quote the text.
7.
Analyze the difference between the concepts of “Justice” and of “Law,” and explore whether justice is served by the end of
The Stranger.
8.
Analyze the narrative point of view and narrative style of The Stranger; how does the very way the novel is written
contribute to its moods, meanings, and effects?
9.
Analyze the use of sensory detail (imagery) in The Stranger. How do sensory detail and setting contribute to the
characterization of Meursault?
Do not start #10 until you have been instructed to do so.
10. Select your favorite passage from the novel and offer a close stylistic analysis from which you can extrapolate some of the
central ideas, issues, and motifs of the novel.
(The passage must be at least 12 lines from the novel—do not exceed more than one full page from the novel.)
This (#10) is an individual activity. While you will still be seated with your group, you will complete this activity on your own.
There will be time to share later.