Babienko English
The Stranger Study Questions
Part One - Chapter One
1. Describe Meursault’s relationship with his mother. Support your answer with evidence from the
text (quotations).
2. What does the intense heat contribute to the chapter, e.g. Meursault’s emotional state at the
funeral?
3. What indications are there in Chapter One that Meursault feels he is being judged by others?
What expectations does he appear not to have fulfilled?
4. Mersault is very observant; what does Meursault not tell the reader about in this chapter?
Part One - Chapter 2
1. Why does Camus have Meursault protest several times, "it wasn’t my fault"?
2. What do the details about Meursault’s meals and his housekeeping arrangements reveal about
him?
3. What new facets of Meursault’s personality and interests are revealed in this chapter?
4. What "occurred to" Meursault before he goes to bed on Sunday night? What does this signify?
Part One - Chapter 3
1. How do Salamano and his dog resemble each other?
2. Both Céleste and Raymond say that Salamano's treatment of his dog (and vice versa) is "pitful."
Meursault disagrees. Why?
3. Why does Meursault agree to write the letter to Raymond’s girlfriend?
4. Why would Raymond ask Meursault to write the letter for him?
Babienko English
The Stranger Study Questions
Part One - Chapter 4
1. How do Marie and Meursault react differently to Raymond’s fight with his girlfriend?
2. Why does Meursault think of Maman when he hears Salamano crying? React to the last two
sentences of the chapter.
Part One - Chapter 5
1. What does Meursault’s reaction to his boss’ offer of a job transfer to Paris reveal about his
character? With whom else does Meusault exhibit a similar reaction?
2. Why might Meursault be interested in the actions of the “Robot Woman” at Céleste’s restaurant?
3. Discuss the parallels between Salamano and his wife.
4. Constrast Salamano with Meursault. How are they different?
Part One - Chapter 6
1. Why does Meursault return to the beach after he twice encountered the Arabs?
2. Examine Meusault’s descriptions of the sun and the sand throughout the chapter; what role does
the sun play in the unfolding of this chapter's events, especially Meursault's shooting of the Arab
man on the beach? How do these descriptions contribute to our understanding of Meusault’s
character?
3. What are the parallels between his mother’s funeral and the beach scene?
4. Explain this statement: "It was like knocking four quick times on the door of unhappiness."
Part Two - Chapter One
1. How does Meursault explain to the lawyer how his "physical needs" relate to his "feelings"? How
is this significant to our understanding of Meursault?
2. Meursault makes this statement about the lawyer: "He didn't understand me, and he was sort of
holding it against me. I felt the urge to reassure him that I was like everybody else, just like
everybody else." What is significant about this statement?
3. Why is it important to the lawyer to establish Meursault’s attitude towards his mother’s death?
What is Camus suggesting about society here?
Babienko English
The Stranger Study Questions
Part Two - Chapter Two
1. How does Marie’s visit change Meursault’s attitude toward imprisonment?
2. What adjustments does Meursault have to make to prison life?
3. What significance may the newspaper story of the Czechs have to Meursault’s outlook on life?
4. Meursault says that the days "ended up flowing into one another. They lost their names." What
does he mean?
5. What strategies does Meursault employ to habituate himself to life in prison while he awaits trial?
Does he change as a result of prison confinement? Explain.
Part Two - Chapter Three
1. Why is the "jury trial" a good vehicle for Camus in showing the absurdity of the various attempts
made to interpret why Meursault has committed his crime? That is, what things matter most
during a trial -- the evidence, or other factors? Explain.
2. When does Meursault realize that for the first time he was guilty? What is he guilty of?
3. When does Camus mention chance and luck in this chapter? Why do you think he includes these
concepts here? What is their significance?
4. What does Meursault realize as he is being taken back to prison during that time of day when "a
long time ago, [he] was perfectly content"? What is the significance of this realization?
Part Two - Chapter Four
1. In his summation, the prosecutor claims that the "blinding clarity of the facts" and the “dim light
cast by [Meursault’s] mind” will prove that the murder was premeditated. What is the purpose
and effect of Camus’ use of figurative language here? How might this tie in with the notion of
choice and existential freedom?
2. The prosecuting attorney describes Meursault's heart as "an abyss threatening to swallow up
society" (101), and on 102 he even accuses Meursault of the parricide supposedly committed by
the next defendant to be tried in the same courtroom .How do you interpret these strange claims -what threat might Meursault be said to pose to "civilized society" even beyond the rather
common crime he has committed?
3. What is significant about the defense lawyer’s use of the personal pronoun “I” in his summary
argument? How might this be considered symbolic?
4. As his lawyer is speaking, Meursault states: “I was assailed by memories of a life that wasn’t
mine anymore, but one in which I’d found the simplest and most lasting joys…The utter
pointlessness of whatever I was doing there seized me by the throat, and all I wanted was to get it
over with and get back to my cell and sleep” (105). Discuss the significance of this passage,
especially as it relates to Camus’ concept of the absurd.
Babienko English
The Stranger Study Questions
Part Two - Chapter Five
1. Up until he meets with the chaplain, Meursault struggles with thoughts of death and
thoughts of how he might escape it. Discuss the metaphorical significance of this part of
the book.
2. 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?
3. 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)
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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 Meusault’s beliefs about an afterlife?
4. What is the “gentle indifference of the world”? (122).
5. Explain the final sentence of the book; why would Meursault wish to for a large crowd of
spectators to “greet [him] with cries of hate” on the day of his execution? (123). How
would this “consummate” everything and make him “feel less alone”? (123). How might
this wish relate to the notion of protest and rebellion found in the “Myth of Sisyphus”?