The Stranger Study Guide
Characters and terms:
Meursault
Marie Cardona
Raymond Sintès
Masson
Salamano
Celeste
the narrator’s boss
Maman
Thomas Perez
the caretaker of the
home
the director of the home
the chaplain of the jail
the magistrate
the prosecutor
the little robot woman
Algiers
Paris
Absurdism -- philosophy based on the belief that man exists in an irrational and
meaningless universe and in which man’s life has no meaning outside his
own existence.
(absurd = ridiculously unreasonable, irrational, meaningless)
Narrative voice, tone, and diction:
•• First-person, Meursault, the protagonist, as narrator. (As such, no other
character’s thoughts are known except from what can be interpreted by what the
character says and does.)
••
Meursault’s narration is extremely flat in tone, very matter-of-fact. He states
mostly what he did and said, and sometimes what he was thinking, but rarely what
he felt when he was doing it, or what he felt that caused him to do it. He also
relates experiences of pleasure or pain, but these experiences are exclusively
caused by external stimuli such as light, temperature, and immersion in water.
Rarely does Meursault react emotionally to people. Exceptions to this are his
extremely negative feelings toward the mourners during the vigil for Maman (pp.
10-11) and of course when he snaps and attacks the chaplain.
••
The largely emotionless tone of Meursault’s narration is well-explained in the text
and matches his psychology and philosophical outlook. [See the “Meursault on
Meursault” quotes below.]
••
Meursault’s diction (word choice) is mostly simple and direct, in accordance with
his straightforward narration and matter-of-fact tone. Even though he has a strong
philosophical viewpoint, he doesn’t sound like a philosopher – his vocabulary is
not elevated and he makes no references to literature or philosophy. Thus he
comes across as an everyman, not an intellectual. He also uses little figurative
language, with two exceptions: the final pages of both part 1 and part 2. In his
depiction of his shooting the Arab, Meursault’s sudden use of figurative language
adds to the sense of his disorientation (he does not sound like himself) (pp. 5759). In the final scene, the use of metaphor in the second-to-last paragraph (pp.
120-22) accentuates what he’s revealing about his beliefs, making his thoughts
more forceful and frightening (“the dark wind,” etc.). And in the final paragraph
of the novel, his use of metaphor poeticizes his love of life and the sensual world.
The Stranger Study Guide 2 of 6
Quotes and Commentary
•• Camus on Meursault (from his “Preface”):
… the hero of my book is condemned because he does not play the game.
In this respect he is foreign to the society in which he lives; he wanders on
the fringe, in the suburbs of private, solitary, sensual life.
Meursault doesn’t play the game. … [H]e refuses to lie. … He says what
he is. He refuses to hide his feelings, and immediately society feels
threatened.
For me, … Meursault is … a poor and naked man enamored of a sun that
leaves no shadows.* Far from being bereft of all feeling, he is animated
by a passion that is deep because it is stubborn, a passion for the absolute
and truth. This truth is still a negative one,** the truth of what we are and
what we feel, but without it no conquest of ourselves or of the world will
ever be possible.
••
*
“sun that leaves no shadows” = absolute truth.
**
the negative truth is the absurdity of existence.
Meursault on Meursault:
Looking back on it [my life], I wasn’t unhappy. When I was a student, I
had lots of ambitions …. But when I had to give up my studies I learned
very quickly that none of it really mattered. (p. 41)
[On killing the Arab] I knew that I had shattered the harmony of the day,
the exceptional silence of a beach where I’d been happy.* Then I fired
four more times** at the motionless body … And it was like knocking
four quick times on the door of unhappiness. (p. 59)
* Note that he does often express happiness with the sensual pleasures of life.
** What Meursault doesn’t do is analyze or explain his emotions: Why does he
shoot again? What is he feeling? We are left to interpret this, just as he have
to interpret Burt’s self-defeating actions in “A Serous Talk.” Meursault often
states that he doesn’t know why he says or does something, such as when he
“snapped” and attacks the chaplain; but he might state that such questions are
meaningless, as nothing matters anyway. See the next two quotes.
I answered [his defense attorney] that I had pretty much lost the habit of
analyzing myself and that it was hard for me to tell him what he wanted
The Stranger Study Guide 3 of 6
to know. I probably did love Maman, but that didn’t mean anything. (p.
65)
I explained to him, however, that my nature was such that my physical
needs often got in the way of my feelings. The day I buried Maman, I
was very tired and sleepy, so much so that I wasn’t really aware of what
was going on. What I can say for certain is that I would rather Maman
hadn’t died. (p. 65)
*
*
*
I grabbed him by the collar of his cassock. I was pouring out on him
everything that was in my heart, cries of anger and cries of joy. (1) He
seemed so certain about everything, didn’t he? And yet none of his
certainties was worth one hair of a woman’s head. (2) He wasn’t even
sure he was alive, because he was living like a dead man. (3) … But I was
sure about me, about everything, surer than he could ever be, sure of my
life and sure of the death I had waiting for me. … I had been right, I was
still right, I was always right. (4) I had lived my life one way and could
just as well have lived it another. I had done this and I hadn’t done that. I
hadn’t done this thing but I had done another. And so? … Nothing,
nothing mattered, and I knew why. So did he. Throughout the whole
absurd life I’d lived, a dark wind had been rising toward me from
somewhere deep in my future, … and as it passed, this wind leveled
whatever was offered to me at the time … (5) What did other people’s
deaths or a mother’s love matter to me; (6) 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, (7) me and billions of privileged people like
him who also called themselves my brothers? (8) Couldn’t he see,
couldn’t he see that? Everybody was privileged. There were only
privileged people. (9) The others would all be condemned one day. And
he would be condemned. too. What would it matter if he were accused of
murder and then executed because he didn’t cry at his mother’s funeral?”
(10) (pp. 120-21)
(1) Note Meursault’s passion, an outburst of both fury and happiness (because he’s
convinced in the rightness of his beliefs; that the truth is on his side).
(2) The chaplain’s certainties about God and the afterlife are worthless because,
Meursault asserts, they are false. No one can know these things for certain, and the
uncertainty renders them meaningless.
(3) “Living like a dead man” = the chaplain is not really living life to its fullest,
enjoying the sensual pleasure that Meursault gets from life. Rather, the chaplain
The Stranger Study Guide 4 of 6
ignores the sensual while waiting in solemn expectation for an afterlife that may not
exist.
(4) Meursault is right about life’s meaninglessness, given the uncertainties of the
existences of God – an ultimate judge of men’s actions – and of a pleasurable
afterlife that, according to the Church, must be earned.
(5) All choices are meaningless and nothing matters in life because nothing will change
the outcome – i.e., death (the only certainty). Meursault then depicts death
metaphorically as a “dark wind” that “leveled whatever was offered me” – i.e., the
knowledge of death destroyed everything for him: his ambition, his long-term
feelings for others, etc. All that he is able to enjoy, it seems, are momentary, sensual
pleasures that are not lasting, just as life is not lasting. He eschews or denies the
deep feelings of serious relationships such as familial love and marriage because
their seeming permanence is an illusion.
(6) The knowledge of the inevitability of death makes the normal sadness people feel
about the passing of a loved one meaningless, because everybody dies. “A mother’s
love” – i.e., a deep, lasting love – is meaningless because nothing lasts, and because
that love is still not powerful enough to prevent Meursault’s death, so what good is it
really? Meursault’s death preoccupation makes him profoundly self-centered, as
“life has no meaning outside of his [Meursault’s own] existence” (quoting the
definition of Absurdism, above).
(7) People “choose” their lives, but they only think they have control over (“elect”) their
fate. The truth is that everyone has the same fate – i.e., death.
(8) Again, Meursault’s tone suggests that he resents being called a “brother,” just as he
resented the priest at Maman’s funeral and the chaplain in the jail’s calling him “my
son” and the chaplain’s wanting to be called “Father.” This is an indication of
Meursault’s deep feelings of isolation, as others do not share his views. His beliefs
alienate him from society.
(9) Life is a privilege, just as it is. No afterlife is necessary for Meursault to appreciate
it.
(10) Since we’re all going to die, and since we can’t know if our morality is being
judged, when and how you die and issues such as sin and reputation are meaningless.
*
*
*
Sounds of the countryside were drifting in. Smells of night, earth, and salt
air were cooling my temples. The wondrous peace of that sleeping
summer flowed through me like a tide. (1) Then, in the dark hour
before dawn, sirens blasted. They were announcing departures for a
world that now and forever meant nothing to me. (2) For the first time
The Stranger Study Guide 5 of 6
in a long time I thought of Maman. I felt as if I understood why at the end
of her life she had taken a “fiance,” why she had played at beginning
again. (3) … So close to death, Maman must have felt free then and ready
to live it all again. (4) Nobody, nobody had the right to cry over her. (5)
And I felt ready to live it all again too. As if that blind rage had washed
me clean, rid me of hope; (6) for the first time, in that night alive with
signs and stars, I opened myself up to the gentle indifference of the
world. (7) Finding it so much like myself – so like a brother, really (8) –
I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again. (9) For everything
to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there
be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet
me with cries of hate.” (10) (pp. 122-23)
(1) These sentences again emphasize the sensual pleasure Meursault obtains from being
alive. His poetic use of metaphor emphasizes the pleasure he’s experiencing.
(2) The sirens are apparently from the jail, announcing executions. In saying that the
dying people are “departing for a world that … meant nothing to me,” Meursault is
asserting that, even if in fact an afterlife exists, he refuses to value it because of the
uncertainty he has of it. All he values is this life, of which he can be certain.
(3) The key word here is “played.” Maman is able to “play” at beginning again, because,
now that death is so near, she can relax about it and happily ignore it. Meursault has
been tortured by consciousness of death, and thus unable to “play” and enjoy more
than ephemeral pleasures.
(4) Maman is freed by her proximity to death; it becomes more enjoyable – suddenly
worth living, which is something that Meursault has not felt in his life. Life felt
burdensome to him, poisoned by the “dark wind.”
(5) This is the hardest line to decipher. I think Meursault is saying that “nobody had a
right to cry over [Maman]” because she was happy; and perhaps also that death is a
release from the burden of the consciousness of death. He also seems offended,
however, that others should cry when he, her closest relative, knows better than to
cry: they had “no right,” because they were wrong to do it; it’s presumptuous.
(6) The “blind rage” he refers to was directed at the chaplain. Now that he has finally
vocalized the truth about death that has haunted his whole life, he feels cleansed. He
also says here that it “rid me of hope,” telling us that, despite everything Meursault
has stated about his consciousness of death’s inevitability, he nevertheless clung to a
futile hope that he could somehow be spared.
(7) The “signs and stars” in the night sky are perhaps part of the world’s “gentleness,” as
they are beautiful and poetic, creating for humanity the illusion of hope. Meursault
asserts, however, that the world is ultimately “indifferent” to the fates, problems, and
behavior of humans: No one is watching out for you. The only thing truly fated is
The Stranger Study Guide 6 of 6
death. Meanwhile, Meursault’s saying that he “opened … up” emphasizes that his
upset over the knowledge of death has shut him off from feelings. He has kept
himself closed up in a shell, isolated from the world as well as other people.
(8) The world’s ultimate “indifference” to humans echoes the indifference that Meursault
has demonstrated to everyone around him throughout the novel. Thus, alienated
from society and insulted when the priest and chaplain call him “son,” Meursault
feels a kinship with the natural world, in which he takes such sensual pleasure, and is
willing to embrace it as being “like a brother.”
(9) Meursault acknowledges the pleasure he has felt in living, despite the burden of the
consciousness of death. And now, close to death and with the absolute certainty that
there is no hope of reprieve from his death sentence (with which everyone lives), he,
like Maman at the end of her life, feels released from his burden – happy and free.
(10) This last sentence of the novel emphasizes both Meursault’s terrible loneliness and
alienation from society.