Dom Wooten
Period 2a
04/22/2011
Throughout The Stranger by Albert Camus, the author portrays Meursault as a character who
refuses to conform to the expectations of society or lie to anyone that comes in contact with. As the
novel progresses one comes to the realization that Meursault is who he is and he’s definitely not
changing at all despite what’s expected of him. Camus presents the readers with a character that isn’t
religious and doesn’t particularly show emotions; he doesn’t seem to have remorse or feel love.
Sometimes the other characters in the novel take Meursault’s laud for the physical aspect of things and
try to make it into something they can understand, when that actually shows how ignorant they are to
understanding the complexity or even the simplicity of Meursault as a character. Two particular key
passages in the end of the novel, one being his final epiphany and the other being the trial, play a strong
role in demonstrating that same lack of understanding the other characters have for Meursault. When
reading the ending to the novel it becomes quite obvious that the two passages connect together and
they are in sync in a sense that they both interfered with changing Meursault as a character and without
the significance of these events he wouldn’t have been able to figure out the true meaning to his life.
The first of the two significant events occur as Meursault is in the court room and becomes
convicted of a crime he is guilty of, but in reality Meursault was not truly convicted for the crime but the
actions that occurred before the murder was even committed. Basically, Meursault was convicted
because he was guilty of being different. He neglected to cry at his mother’s funeral and that was so
abnormal to everyone that they couldn’t bare to let him live. The fact that Meursault didn’t cry at the
funeral made the other characters think he just didn’t care about anything; if he doesn’t show empathy
for his mother dying then how could he last in a society where death is to be mourned over and life is to
be cherished? Secondly, he was convicted because the courtroom claimed that his “crime was
premeditated” according to the prosecutor and when Meursault says “He (the prosecutor) kept
reminding them of my insensitivity; of my ignorance when asked my Maman’s age; of my swim the next
day-with a women; of the Fernandel; and finally of my taking Marie home with me” (99), this repetition
of these events help highlight the true reason of his conviction. If these events were irrelevant to his
conviction they wouldn’t have kept being reinforced to the jury. He’s at a disadvantage in choosing to
disagree with society; Meursault thinks to himself “Everything is happening without my participation.
My fate was being decided without anyone so much as to asking my opinion” (98), confirming the
theory that society makes the decision between life and death.
The courtroom scene changes Meursault as a character; he realizes what’s really important to
the society he was born into. When Meursalt says, “He said that I didn’t have a soul and that nothing
human, not one of the moral principles that governed men’s hearts, was within my reach” (101), it
emphasized the idea of this being the way the prosecutor wanted the jury to view Meursault. This the
way the prosecutor wanted society to view Meursault. He understands that in his society they would
rather have one lie about their emotions and pretend to be sympathetic in order to please the jury
instead of acting with their true feeling or furthermore acting with their lack of feelings. When he is on
trial for killing the Arab he doesn’t show sympathy or remorse for killing him; Meursault act nonchalant
about the death. Death doesn’t seem to affect Meursault and as a character in his position he was
expected to act as if his life depended on it. As ironic as that sounds, he didn’t let the court room or
even the jury control him, and took the fact that he was going to be executed with no problem. The
courtroom scene made Meursault aware of all the liars in his world, honest because he didn’t give up
and chose death over honor, and lastly, it made him loyal to any character in the novel that was like him
or understood him in any way and wanted to hide it.
The ending to the novel, “Then, I don’t know what it was, but something seemed to break inside
of me… they should greet me with howls of secretion” (151-154), is rather strange because Meursault
has an unexpected epiphany while he is filled with rage. When he seems he has reached a state of
nothingness he attempts, subconsciously, to obtain the true meaning in his life. He can comprehend the
idea that he is different; he comes to the realization that his execution came about because he didn’t
visualize death as detrimental. Meursault says in his own words that even though a man lived a
privileged life or not he is still condemned to death one day and for that reason it made it irrelevant
rather he lived a privileged life because he was going to die anyway just like the rest of us. He notices
that he doesn’t feel emotions quite the same as everyone else because it didn’t bother him if his
girlfriend, Marie, were kissing another guy; none of that mattered to Meursault. If there was no
concrete evidence to support an idea then it was completely irrelevant to Meursault. If Marie were
kissing another guy that didn’t matter because he didn’t feel anything but physical attraction for her and
unless he saw it with his own two eyes then it wasn’t true so it didn’t matter.
Having the final epiphany in the book changed Meursault in ways that become obvious to
anyone who became captivated in the novel. When Meursault says to the Chaplain, “For all to be
accomplished, for me to feel less lonely, all that remained to hope was that on the day on my execution
there should be a huge crowd of spectators and that they should greet me with howls of excretion”
(154), he discovers that the people who hated him the most understood him the best. Meaning when
Marie is still waiting for Meursault to love her and she is blinded because she keeps thinking someday
Meursault will love me or he loves me right now he just doesn’t know how to show his affection, it
demonstrates how oblivious she is to understanding Meursault as a person. This man isn’t capable of
feeling love or feeling the emotions that of a human being. The other individuals who hate Meursault
and will greet his execution with “howls of excretion” realize that he is different; they can comprehend
that he isn’t going to change because he is just abnormal for their time. Meursault sees them greeting
him with hate as a sign of unity therefore he didn’t die alone.
The courtroom scene and the final epiphany tie together in a sense that they played a major role
in helping Meursault to discover the true meaning in life. After reaching a state of nothingness,
Meursault was able to analyze who he was as person. He was able to accept his abnormities and realize
the meaning of his life was to stand out from society, and have people hate him because he was
different and have people love him because they didn’t understand the complexity or even the
simplicity of him as a character. He was more than just some man who didn’t feel emotions, he was
meant to teach everyone who came in contact with him a lesson of having loyalty to oneself. He figured
out that he wasn’t meant to “live like a dead man” such as the Chaplain and the religious people in the
novel were doing and he wasn’t going to turn to God during the final moments of his life because that
was wishful thinking; something to hope for that had no concrete evidence to support it. Other people
in the novel can go on and on about the morality about Meursault and question his character but in the
end he lived in died just as he was supposed to.