The Stranger and the New York Four
How the Seinfeld Finale Appropriated the Camus Classic
For nine seasons Jerry, Elaine, George and Kramer drifted through existence devoid of purpose
until the series finale where they were forced to confront the outcome of such a lifestyle. While
the episode (the two parts considered one inextricable whole here) lends itself to a structure that
parades fan favorites in front of an audience for a final bow, a greater literary event is, in fact,
occurring. A reader of Camus will recognize the episode as an appropriation of Camus’ The
Stranger, a work concerned with nothing and its effect on the individual in society. This two part
essay will first describe how the finale appropriated The Stranger and then discuss the
implications of such use.
Part I: The show that claimed to be about nothing embraced a text dedicated to the very idea.
Both texts begin with the repercussions of a loved one falling ill. In the case of The Stranger, the
illness results in the novel’s famous opening lines “maman has died today. Or yesterday maybe, I
don’t know” (3) and the reader’s introduction to the indifference of the text’s main character,
Meursault who is reacting (or rather not reacting) to his mother’s passing. After Elaine’s
comedic arrival (she’s nearly injured by Kramer’s driving) she commits a “big, hefty, stinking
faux pas” by “mak[ing] a health inquiry on a cell phone” when she attempts to contact Jill to
inquire about the health of a friend’s father. While the faux pas does not rise (or better yet, sink)
to the level of Meursault’s indifference towards the death of the woman who birthed him, it
begins to link the two works together. Both parties (Meursault and the New York Four—Jerry,
Elaine, George and Kramer) will ultimately meet their ends due to the disapproval they find in
lands where French rule does not belong, but is imposed nonetheless. Certainly there are an
abundance of English words able to communicate the disapproval Jerry and George have of
Elaine’s actions. The past nine seasons have demonstrated this. Jerry and George could not be
confused for Francophiles or Francophones. Nevertheless, the French idiom is not only used
once to communicate their disdain, but twice.
While The Stranger then goes onto divulge the events, rhythms and values that make up
Meursault’s life (Celeste’s, his Job, the vigil, Marie, Salamano and his dog, Raymond) Seinfeld
rests on the previous nine seasons and moves to set up the climax. In both texts the climax occurs
on a bright sunny day when violence breaks out. Meursault shoots the Arab and the Seinfeld
gang witnesses a robbery at gunpoint. While the texts take different routes to arrive at the
moment that ends the relative tranquility of the protagonists’ lives both routes go through the
beach on their way to Paris. Just as the hot sun causes Meursault to shoot the Arab once and
then four more times into “the motionless body” Kramer’s inability to get the ocean out of his
system, brings down the private plane carrying Jerry, Elaine, George and Kramer. Both stories
feature the derailment of lives headed for Paris. Although Paris was not viewed as a desirable
destination in either case, the idea of Paris gave their lives a trajectory and provided evidence
that their lives had some regard for the future rather than being strictly mired in the present.
Meursault, whose boss is “planning to open an office in Paris” is convinced that “people never
change their lives [and] that in any case one life was as good as another” (41). This lukewarm
reception to the idea of transferring to Paris is seen again when the Seinfeld quartet settle on
Paris after finding fault with Japan, Russia and Switzerland.
Though Meursault’s act of depravity is committed on an Algerian beach and the New York
Four’s is committed on a sidewalk in fictional Latham, Massachusetts the results of their actions
(in the case of Seinfeld, inaction) will have them removed from society. Though the New York
Four have committed no outward act, their inaction results in a trial when Latham’s new Good
Samaritan law is enforced. The law named after The Samaritans who, according to Kramer, were
“an ancient tribe -- very helpful to people” penalizes the Seinfeld crew for their inaction. In both
situations French Law is being enforced in a land that is not French and the defendants view it as
absurd. Meursault, who does not believe life has any inherent value, does not understand why
his actions merit a trial and a sentence that is so hopeless that it cannot “give a condemned man a
chance” and only “kill him nine times out of ten” (111). Similarly the New York Four can’t
understand, as George puts so succinctly “Why would we want to help somebody?” The
absurdity of the Seinfeld situation is furthered by the audience’s attachment to the characters.
Although their trial will show that the way they have conducted themselves is, according to
Judge Vandelay, deserving of contemplation, “a maximum fine of $85,000 and as much as five
years in prison” feels absurdly excessive.
As the energy of the Seinfeld finale will be within the courtroom with the guest stars, the
audience only sees a few moments of the New York Four awaiting trial. It is here though that
the audience finds the influence of Meursault and his attention to his physical needs. While in
jail Meursault is not focused on a future devoid of freedom. After earlier mentioning the
hardships that his thoughts still being “those of a free man” have caused (76), he states that not
having cigarettes “may be the thing that was hardest for me” (78). In this regard, the Seinfeld
audience first sees George reenact the opening scene of the episode at Monk’s Cafe from his jail
cell asking Jerry “Would it kill him to check up on us?” enraged that he has not been brought
catsup. Like Meursault, George’s needs will not be altered by location or situation.
Jerry and Kramer’s pretrial discussion of milk levels also resonates here. After the audience is
told by Jerry’s mother that “he misses [cereal] more than anything” Kramer and Jerry bemoan
the “big adjustment” that conserving milk has been. Jerry has “always filled to at least three
quarters – sometimes to the top of the cereal”, but now he “can’t even see the milk anymore.”
Comedic through its absurdity, Jerry concludes the conversation saying “it’s the hardest thing
[he’s] ever had to do”.
Though the defendants are unable to prescribe to the laws of the society, they will be judged.
Both parties are, in fact, attacked by the establishment because they exist outside of the norm.
Meursault is attacked because he does not believe in a Savior, an afterlife or the intrinsic value of
existence and is given the moniker “Monsieur Antichrist” by the examining magistrate; Seinfeld
and his friends exist in a world outside of Latham where helping another doesn’t make sense and
are condescendingly described as being “from New York” (71). We are called here to remember
Jerry and George’s reaction to being told to have a “Nice Day.” “What was that?” George asks
Jerry as if such benign niceties are outlawed in the city. Their reaction is similar when they are
told to have a nice day moments into their time in Latham. While the Prosecution’s comments
don’t rise to the level of the (Magistrate’s) within The Stranger when he asks Meursault “Do you
want my life to be meaningless?” the tone the prosecutor invokes is one that declares that they
are less valuable than those who fit the norm (69).
Neither trial is notable on its own accord. Outside circumstances bring them to the media’s
attention. Meursault’s trial garners attention even though it “isn’t the most important case of the
session” (82). The murder of the Arab will be viewed because of the parricide that occurs right
after it, while the Seinfeld trial has caught Geraldo’s attention because “they got Jackie Chiles” a
charismatic attorney modeled after Simpson attorney, Johnny Cochran. D.A. Hoyt expects “the
whole country is going to be watching” what happens in Latham. They are, as the Guard told
them they were “first ones to be arrested on it, probably in the whole country” giving Hoyt the
motivation “to do whatever it takes to win it, no matter what the cost”.
Since the defendants are not disposed to deny their crimes (Meursault sees no reason to lie and
the New York Four videotaped their lack of action) “the big issue … is going to be character”
and the prosecutors will attempt to show “a pattern of anti-social behavior that's been going on
for years”. While the Seinfeld character trial is a great deal more comedic the effect is the same:
the defendants are no longer on trial for the act of depraved indifference, but instead for the way
they conducted themselves within their daily lives. Meursault didn’t cry at his mother’s funeral.
Instead he smoked and declined to see her body. George engaged “in restrained jubilation” when
his fiancée was killed by licking toxic envelopes. Neither reacted correctly at the death of
another. Meursault’s lack for authority is seen when he lies to the police on Raymond’s behalf
just as Jerry, George and Elaine are unable to follow the Soup Nazi’s prescribed ordering system
and we are told of Jerry’s transition from a “library delinquent” to become a “library criminal”.
In the end both parties are tried upon their inability to live within the expected norms of society.
Camus’ reader, who has long thought Meursault odd, piles on the evidence brought forward in
court by the caretaker, Thomas Pérez, Céleste, Marie, Masson, Salamano, and Raymond. (Only
Raymond gave testimony directly pertinent to the crime.) He has chosen to live in only one room
of a larger apartment. He doesn’t cite money as a reason not to see his mother, who is in failing
health, but chooses rather than buy a black tie and armband to mourn her to borrow one from
Emanuel. Meursault is bothered more by the sounds “of the old people . . . sucking at the insides
of their cheeks and making these weird smacking noises” than the death that has brought him to
the vigil (11). Likewise the New York Four are condemned for disrespecting the elderly and the
infirm (stealing marble rye, popping the bubble boy, the defective wheelchair), not keeping
within social norms (conducting “the contest”), not staying within socially acceptable social
boundaries (exposing a nipple and buying sponges --“not the kind you clean your tub with”) and
not respecting the long held maxim of saving women and children first (George’s early exit from
the birthday party). Indeed, in D.A. Hoyt’s words they are being tried for “a pattern of anti-social
behavior that's been going on for years.”
The only defense available to the attorneys is in attempting to convince their clients play the
game (ironically as Jackie Chiles asks George “Do you think this is a game?”) and encourage
them to at least appear as if they have a moral compass. It is implied that if Meursault will tell
the jury that on the day of his mother’s vigil he “had held back [his] natural feelings” that he will
be seen as someone worthy of consideration (65). Similarly, if George were to wear a cardigan
the jury won’t “see a mean, nasty, evil George Constanza” instead they’ll see Perry Como who
no one will convict since “Perry Como helps out a fat tub who’s getting robbed.”
They are condemned because they have and continue to refuse to play the game. As written by
Camus in 1955 “the hero of my book is condemmed because he does not play the game.” Jerry,
Elaine, George and Kramer have repeatedly refused to “play the game” by following social
convention. Meursault “refuses to lie . . . refuses to hide his feelings” where the New York Four
demonstrated for nine seasons that they will not put the needs of others above their own.
Both juries return guilty verdicts quickly and it has been decided that the defendants will be
removed from society for the “callous indifference and utter disregard for everything that is good
and decent” as it “has rocked the very foundation upon which our society is built”. As the
audience is left with the main characters awaiting their sentences to be carried out the
protagonists in both stories wish to start again. In the last paragraph of the novel Meursault tells
readers that he “felt ready to live it all again” and though he cannot the Seinfeld quartet begin to
do so with a nod to the first episode of the series when Jerry and George engage in a debate
concerning the location of the second shirt button—“it makes or breaks the shirt”.
If the episode’s epilogue is included within the discussion both stories end with the jeers of a
crowd. Meursault wishes to hear them now that he has ironically accepted the indifference of the
world and Jerry is booed off the stage in a prison performance after asking such Seinfeldian
questions as “So what is the deal with the yard?” and “Are we that bad that we have to be sent to
prison, in prison?” Though Meursault is not beheaded within the novel, Seinfeld does “die” on
stage.
--where does this go?—
Prior to the delivery of the verdict the Seinfeld finale forces its audience to consider the role of
love within nothingness. As the New York Four await the jury’s decision to be delivered to and
read by Judge Vandelay Jerry asks Elaine “what was it you were about to say to me on the plane
when it was going down?”. Elaine, despite Geraldo’s comments to the audience earlier (“Well,
ladies and gentlemen, who know, maybe this trial will bring them closer together. Maybe they'll
even end up getting married.”) tells Jerry “I've always loved ... United Airlines.” It is obvious by
her body language and attempt to stall that she cannot bring herself to finish the sentiment she
began as the plane was experiencing its rapid descent. “Jerry, I've always loved ..u..” Elaine was
professing before Kramer exclaims “We're straightening out!”. While this standoffishness
concerning love is not realized in the same manner, the inability to commit is seen when Marie
asks Meursault to marry her. He responds with “I said it didn’t make any difference to me and
that we could if she wanted to” (41). While he does not say no he is unable to fully say yes due
to his lack of emotional investment. He further demonstrates this as the conversation continues:
“Then she wanted to know if I loved her. I answered the same way I had the last time, that it
didn’t mean anything but that I probably didn’t love her. ‘So why marry me, then?’ she said. I
explained to her that it didn’t really matter and that if she wanted to, we could get married.
Besides, she was the one who was doing the asking and all I was saying was yes” (41-42). Each
couple had been involved previously and are found discussing love prior to the climax of their
respective works. Neither couple is able to make it to Paris (the city of love) and their discussion
is unable to result in commitment due to the philosophy of one or more of the characters
involved.
Part II: The implications of an entire country watching Nine Seasons of Nothing.
Camus creates a character that is difficult to relate to. A reader can only get so close to
Meursault. While his actions can be, at times, justified academically they just don’t feel right.
They don’t pass the humanity test. We are intrigued, and dare to approach him, but only because
we can observe him from a distance. He is sensible and honest, but he just doesn’t become
likeable even though it is clear from the trial testimony that his counterparts (Celeste, Marie &
Raymond) have a fondness for him.
Conversely, though the Seinfeld finale puts the Seinfeld quartet through a very similar set of
events, the audience only witnesses the disdain of those who have come into contact with Jerry,
George, Elaine and Kramer. Many like Newman have attended the trial in the hopes to see the
demise of the New York Four (though not all of them brought popcorn). This is troubling
because we have grown to like them. We’ve laughed at them, even at times to the point of tears.
We’ve agreed with them as they pointed out the flaws in others and we’ve repeatedly taken their
side when the cosmos conspired to wrong them.
Over 79 million people watched the Seinfeld finale live and though it was reported to be widely
disliked by the majority of the public it was a veritable success. For the series (and the finale) to
have been as successful as it was (stats) audiences had to enter into an empathetic relationship
with its main characters. The transference that occurs across nine years of laughter and shared
memories with family and co-workers as last night’s episode was discussed around the water
cooler creates a palpable bond that makes it difficult to set aside feelings and view ourselves and
our behaviors objectively.
If we dislike the finale it is because we dislike what we have laughed at. We have dislike what
we’ve found funny. We’re upset that we’ve championed the lives of the morally corrupt. We’re
upset because we’ve been forced to confront the results of a lack of respect for socially
acceptable boundaries.
The distaste for the finale comes not due to the plot line itself, but because it makes clear that the
regard for these characters was wrong. Nine years were spent laughing at “a pattern of antisocial behavior”. We laughed as they were “mocking and maligning”. When they are
condemned we are likewise condemned. Their immoral behavior suddenly becomes ours.
No one that I know of faults the finale for the courtroom testimony or the format allowing for
some of the many of the series’ greatest highlights to be replayed. The issue is not that they are
found guilty, which becomes the obvious agenda after Mabel Choate testifies. Instead, audiences
dislike the emptiness they are left with as the camera slowly pulls back and we are left to see the
gray, bleak walls surrounding Jerry, Elaine, George and Kramer as they await transport to prison.
While this only lasts a few seconds it feels unbearable. This emptiness, which the series has
been brimming with since its conception (it is a show about nothing), has finally been forced to
the forefront and we it’s audience must face its reckoning and accept that the characters we have
been so enamored with will not be changed no matter what their surroundings or situation. They
will not repent, be sincere, ask for forgiveness, or hang their heads in shame. They, like George
did during the trial, will continue to think that their actions were justified even though they were
proven in a court of law to be wrong. We have aligned ourselves with emptiness. We have
accepted as a part of ourselves a nothingness and an amorality that we would feel better about if
they were suffering on a chain gang and no longer happy-go-lucky. We’d like to see this part of
ourselves destroyed and are trouble, annoyed and ultimately uncomfortable because it is not.
True to Camus’ work, the finale is not an allegory. The work itself does not make it clear which
side we should be on or even what lesson should be learned. We are left feeling empty, perhaps
exhausted at the conclusion. Camus tells us that “Meursault is not a piece of social wreckage, but
a poor and naked man enamored of a sun that leaves no shadows.” It would be easier to classify
him as social wreckage—as someone who was broken. Someone we should just cast away. Just
as it would be easier to classify the New York Four disparagingly as New Yorkers the way D.A.
Hoyt does, but we can’t. Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld constructed The Stranger for a
television audience and we fell in love with the four main characters. Just as the reader is forced
to work through the end of the novel where Meursault wishes to be greeted with “cries of hate”
so too must the audience work through the implications of their feelings regarding the 1 minute
and 5 seconds of screen time that the Seinfeld quartet is sitting in a jail cell and acting as if
nothing has changed. The problem, in part is that nothing has changed, which the audience
would find quickly if they allowed themselves to. The issue Larry David came up against
critically is that until the finale he didn’t ask audiences to think about, as George states,
“anything, everything, something, nothing - Who the hell cares?”
Recycle?
and the jokes they made while the “fat tub” was being robbed is played to the jury. Since the
cases are all but closed the only job for the prosecutor to do is to
Where does all of this come from? Neither can love. When Kramer is unable to get the beach
out of his system…
The juxtaposition of these two texts makes Meursault more sympathetic that he may otherwise
be. He has lied and even killed, but the pattern the book has offered its readers cannot be
considered malignant or toxic the way that the New York Four’s has been declared (defined).
Absurd—audience…fine and years in jail
Audience has been complicit in ….laughter….years of endorsment…
If camus is correct that a man who doesn’t cry at his mother’s funeral will be condemned to
death can we be innocent bystanders if we laughed along the way?
He is firmly mired in the present and his body’s desire for cigarettes, the beach and sex.
In both cases the person within would not have changed.
Both aligned themselves with pimps. Meursault helped Raymond by writing a letter and lying
while Kramer’s eccentricities have him confused for one.
The absurdity continues in the courtroom when Jackie Chiles the attorney for the New York Four
declares that Latham, Massachusetts wishes to change nature:
They were innocent bystanders. Now, you just think about that term. Innocent. Bystanders.
Because that's exactly what they were. We know theywere bystanders, nobody's disputing that. So
how can a bystander be guilty? No such thing. Have you ever heard of a guilty bystander? No,
because you cannot be a bystander and be guilty. Bystanders are by definition, innocent. That is
the nature of bystanding. But no, they want to change nature here. They want to create a whole
new animal - the guilty bystander. Don't you let them do it.
This attitude can be seen in Newman…wishes them harm…
Neither of them can win in the court of public opinion and neither of them will win here.