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Cate Hatridge
Dr. Larocco
Eng 571
1/3/2013
The Pursuit of Happy-ness: The non of Community in The Stranger
In the wake of World War Two and the revelations of the cruelties which modern man
was capable of unleashing on those it declared so other as to be inhuman, Albert Camus reduced
the absurd inhumanity of war to the banal absurdities of the life of one man. The Stranger, as its
title indicates, is a story concerned with connectedness and the lack thereof. No one is more
strange, alien even, than the protagonist, Meursault. Monsieur Meursault, his neighbor calls him
at the beginning, is a last name which will be his only moniker distancing readers and everyone
around him from the connectedness and informality bestowed by a first-name. Camus
deliberately keeps the main character at arm’s length, heightening the disconnect between
readers and the protagonist and mirroring the disconnect between the title character and his
world. Meursault is also largely a stranger to himself, admitting under oath that he has, “pretty
much lost the habit of analyzing [him]self,” a characteristic which costs him the sympathies of
the jury and, ultimately, his life (65). The Stranger receives a death sentence not because of the
crime for which he is on trial, killing a man in cold blood, but for being so far apart from the rest
of humanity that he cannot be understood as a fellow human being. It is for this crime that he is
declared unfit to even live out the remainder of his days sequestered with fellow criminals, but
must instead be publically executed, a demonstration of the actions the community takes to
protect itself against the threat of strangeness. Paradoxically, it is in jail that Meursault has the
revelation that in his isolation he is still part of the cosmos, finally finding a community in which
he can be at peace.
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In jail awaiting his trial, Meursault muses that “A man who had lived for only one day
could easily live for a hundred years in prison” (79). His one day is the day on the beach, a day
in which he loves a woman, is respected and liked by his fellowmen and shoots a man, as Johnny
Cash rumbles, “Just to watch him die.” This day is one of only two places in the Ward
translation of the book in which the word happy is used. To be happy, according to the Oxford
English Dictionary, means: “Having good ‘hap’ or fortune; lucky, fortunate; favoured by lot,
position, or other external circumstance.” The circumstances of Meursault’s happiness this day
are anything other than random fortune, and the means of his undoing are his alone.
The day begins with Meursault, his neighbor Raymond and his girlfriend Marie,
in a bridal-white dress and loose, carefree hair, headed for a day at the beach. Raymond’s casual
greeting of “Good morning, old man,” conveys conviviality, camaraderie and respect (48).
Later, swimming with Marie in the ocean, Meursault is able to reflect that, “We felt a closeness
as we moved in unison and were happy” [emphasis mine] (50). Unlike other meetings with
Marie in which Meursault is physically satisfied by their liaisons, this is the only occasion in the
book in which he declares himself emotionally at peace. That peace is not the peace of solitude
but in finding commonality of emotion, with another human being, something Meursault is not
able to accomplish at any other point in the book, and I think it’s not an exaggeration to say, at
any other point in his life. This sharing of emotion marks the , It is the “no-thing” or non of
community, as Roberto Esposito discusses in the Appendix to his book Communitas: The Origin
and Destiny of Community, marked more by its being “constituitively inhabited by an absence of
subjectivity, of identity, of property” (138). Mersault and Marie simply are together in the ocean
and, for a few moments, that is enough. It is that silent covenant of peace and pleasure in each
other’s company which frees Meursault from the emotionless torpor that, in the rest of The
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Stranger, leaves him flitting form physical sensation to physical sensation, never feeling with
any great intensity. The one-on-one experience of community is enough to nudge Mersault to be
emotionally open enough o experience something approaching the group community of family
back at the beach house.
Upon returning the group, Meursault is thrilled that, Masson, “out of the blue, announced
to his wife that he liked me” (51). The bread fish and wine they consume are all declared “good”
by the compliment-averse Meursault. The companionship, even communion of the repast is
unbroken by conversation. The parties involved are so contented by the food and the company
that they are able to simply be- to cohabit a pleasant silence. Meursault, a man who is seldom
pleased with anything, immediately takes to the friends of Raymond who own the beach house
they visit. He does not need to understand their past or their relationship, but accepts them as
ostensibly good people, and reflected in his positive thoughts, silently offers something of
himself in return. The state of their community begins with a genuinely, rather than sociallyobligated exchange of good-will, reflecting Esposito’s theories of the system of commodifying
lack as a force driving community. Though Meursault’s commitment to this is in thought-alone,
it is nonetheless present and a significant contributor to the community exchange which happens
next. Meursault expresses a liking for both the husband, Masson and his “plump, sweet little
wife” (49). Theirs is the first positive romantic relationship in the book and hearing Masson talk
of spending every holiday and weekend at the beach house with his wife is the first time
Mersault thinks seriously of marrying Marie, presumably hoping for the same kind of easy
companionship Masson has with his nameless wife, viewing their relationship as a Lacanian
relationship mirror. This encounter with the Other-ness of happily married life, and Meursault’s
first willing contemplation of matrimony reflects Zizek’s theories in his essay “Neighbors and
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Other Monsters” as an encounter with the Other/neighbor as a non-threatening mirror of
possibility (Taylor).
The easy company of the breakfast scene in Chapter Four is the most pleasant scene in
the entire book and the closest Camus comes to depicting a pleasantly-functioning community.
All that is shared is a simple repast, and the members of this community of the table are so
absorbed in the shared act of eating that they dispense with conversation, but in those brief
moments, there is community. This community is again marked by Esposito’s no-thing of
community, what he calls the “simple existence” of it (95). The group members are diverse, they
are claiming nothing, trying to do nothing but feed a physical need, but it is an act they complete
together. This is an instance of being-with for which Esposito borrows the Heideggarian term of
mitsein. A Lacanian interpretation illustrates the lack of conversation as an enhancement of this
communal moment. The participants are, in fact, better able to be joined in community because
there is no language, no exchange of verbal symbols to confuse or interrupt them. It is in the
mutual enjoyment of company and good food that Meursault is most able to feel part of
something close to family. The overlap of ritual Christian significance to this act of communion,
celebrated in observant silence is worth noting. There is holiness here, but not religion. The
possibility of finding the sacred in the secular is something to which Camus will return at the end
of the book.
Mersault’s newfound camaraderie with Masson and Raymond is tested when they
encounter the hostile Arabs on the beach and Raymond is wounded. Later, on the beach by
himself, Meursault fatally shoots one of the men from the earlier encounter. The first bullet
seems to have been sufficiently mortal, and yet, Meursault shoots four additional times, even
though he realizes at the time that “it was like knocking four quick times on the door of
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unhappiness,” (59). Thus ends the chapter and, so far as the book indicates, the happiest day of
his life. This complete reversal of community, illustrates Meursault’s lack of ability to sustain
the mitsein earlier in the day, reverting, almost permanently to his previously limited state of
existence. The sharing of happiness with Marie and of communion with the others requires more
emotional capital than he possesses, and Meursault again returns to existing in the Real of
physical sensation. The pleasantly mirroring Others of the beach house have become the
threatening Real of The Other as embodied by the Arab man and his knife. Holding a gun,
Meursault is physically empowered, no longer sharing the mutual vulnerability of the
communion table, and therefore, no longer able to accept the same human vulnerability in the
man before him. Zizek, in “Neigbors and other Monsters” says, “what makes an individual
human and thus something for which we are responsible, toward whom we have a duty to help,
is his/her very finitude and vulnerability”(Taylor,138). The weapons they hold de-humanize
both the Arab, as he is called, and Meursault. It is in this state of de-humanized, I would argue,
sub-human existence that Meursault takes tragic action.
Esposito, again discussing Thomas Hobbes’ views on community says that: “One can
ensure life, which is the first necessity, only by accumulating power, which is the first passion.
Yet one can accumulate power only at the expense of others; at the cost of their life [emphasis
original]; living in their place, at the cost of their death” (27). What is remarkable about
Meursault is that he is not interested in preserving his own life any more than he was interested
in preserving that of the Arab man he kills. Neither does he have a desire for power. In many
ways murder can be seen as an act of power, of the murderer claiming the right to determine the
life and fate of another. However, it is the sun, his sweat, the light, the air, the sea, which
Meursault mentions repeatedly before he pulls the trigger, rather than the other man, “the sea
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carried up a thick, fiery breath. It seemed to me as if the sky split open from one end to the other
to rain down fire. My whole being tensed and I squeezed…”(59). It is not to occupy the Arab’s
place on earth that Mersault kills, but it is for others to occupy his place that he is in turn killed.
The very environment which only a few hours prior brought him his only moment of happiness
has now brought on the panic that Carl Schmitt calls “the terror of the state of nature” (Esposito,
23). Schmitt posits that this terror drives individuals to bind together in community and that
from this state of extremis, people find a spark of rationality which allows them, together, to
overcome their fears (Esposito, 23). Yet, Meursault stands alone, his prior companions having
gone, facing a cultural Other. He is unable to transcend his situation and, in a panic, fires the
gun he holds, and fires again, and again, and again, and again.
His complete lack of repentence or remorse is what makes him a stranger during his trial.
Adopting a Hobbesian ethos of a community driven by fear to protecting against outside threats
of death, one can understandably imagine that a man who can give no reason for shooting
another not just once, but five times, is one who might do so again. Roberto Esposito, in his
book Communitas, quotes Leo Strauss discussing the ideas of English philosopher Thomas
Hobbes, declaring that, “We fear death infinitely more than we desire life” (21). But this is not
true of Monsieur Meursault and because of that the community cannot rally around him. The
judge takes to calling him “Monsieur Antichrist,” able to converse with him only after labeling
him as a kind of Hitler-esque sub-human.
Meursault’s lack of a fear response in the face of death is evidenced in the placidly
detached opening line, “Maman died today. Or yesterday, maybe. I don’t know” (3). Later he
coolly reflects, “Maman was buried now…and that, really, nothing had changed” (24). The issue
of his unemotional response to the loss of his mother comes up at his trial, and, ever-honest
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Meursault tells the members of the court the same thing he told himself eighty-odd pages prior.
Such a peculiar man who is not squeamish in the face of abrupt murder and fails to cry at the
funeral of his own mother is one which cannot be comprehended by society as a fellow-man and
must be feared. Such a force for chaos needs be quarantined from the people at large for the
safety of the rest.
In discussing Hobbesian community dynamics, Carl Schmitt espouses, “the terror of the
state of nature drives anguished individuals to come together, their fear rises to an extreme: a
spark of reason flashes, and suddenly there stands in front of them a new god” (Esposito 23).
However, a community of one is not sufficient to produce the flame of reason, but only to
function in primal fear. Like a cornered animal, Meursault lashes out, knowing that he is
breaking the “harmony of the day” and of his life and yet, unable to stop himself. At this point,
the leviathan of state intrudes to forcibly withdraw Meursault from society for the good of the
rest, acting in the knowledge that, as Esposito says, “only by dissociating themselves from any
relation can individuals avoid lethal contact” (27). It is the court as the arm of the state, this
“assemblage of men gathered together by the fright of fiends” who, “cannot from the
presuppositions of their gathering, overcome hostility” which becomes the Leviathan, a
“creation…of nothing” which acts ironically, removing Meursault from the society of others via
capital punishment so that he may not inflict death on any more of the members of the
community (Esposito, 28). It is the no-thing of this community which Meursault has found so
easy to do without as he waits in jail. After Marie, his love interest, visits him in jail for the first
and last time, he declares that prison feels like home to him (72). That his imprisonment is a
source of satisfaction for both the court, acting on behalf of the State as the arm of the
community and to Meursault himself is a particularly modern turn, reinforcing Esposito’s
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assertion in the introduction to Communitas that the impetus of modern society is toward
increasing individualized isolation, a reactionary self-imprisonment for the sake of selfprotection in a world of ever-increasing threats to the self.
The last time the word happy is used in The Stranger is on the last page. Having made his
peace with “the gentle indifference of the world,” Meursault finds it to be such a comforting
mirror of his own views that he claims the callousness feels like a brother he’s never had. Facing
his death and the end of his existence with this fraternal good will, Meursault declares in the last
lines that he has, “been happy, and [is] happy again” (123). He invokes the togetherness, the
communion of sex with the words, “for everything to be consummated, for me to feel less
alone,” with the paradox that on the day of his death he wishes for a great crowd filled with
“cries of hate” (123). Meursault finds complete emotional fulfillment, enough to displace both
family and romantic connectedness, in abstract contemplation of the universe. In this, he reaches
a neo-Platonic ideal, having both examined his life and the ethos of his world and found what
was lacking in those relations in his outside life in the great void of the beyond, but in himself as
well. In this state of happiness, which, I think can be characterized as peace, Meursault, in his
willingness to be together with the universe, whether that be with passionate crowds surrounding
him at the time of his death, or in the stillness of his cell, or in the stillness of death itself. In this
state of peace, one can only imagine him going willingly to his execution, becoming a scapegoat
for the attendant crowds, assuring their state of community against the condemned man. In this
way, Meursault transcends the complacent observation of the philosopher and becomes a
sacrifice. In his final embrace of the fullness of things, he becomes as the judge deemed him, a
sort of anti-Christ figure. A willing ceremonial sacrifice, but one that seems of a far older
tradition than Christianity, for in this act of sacrifice, the community is consuming him, an act of
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cannibalism to ensure its own survival. The man who has been a stranger to others and even to
himself for the entirety of the novel has, at last, in the monk-like confines of his cell, found his
place within community and within the universe. It is in his own death that he has found
communion with himself. Meursault is able to accept what Esposito names the incompleteness
which is the essence of community, an “essence which is...necessarily defective” (95).
Embracing the Espositan mitsein of the necessarily impersonal community of existence that is
the universe as we know it, Meursault is also able to overcome the linearity of time and space,
declaring himself having once been happy to now be happy again. Though happiness is, by
definition a fleeting thing, in contemplating the no-thing-ness of his impending death Meursault
finds the mitsein, the always-being-with, not only of community, but of emotion, and the dasein,
always-being-there, of not only momentary but eternal happiness. This becomes a type of
modern self-salvation which, as with the breakfast-communion, transcends religious doubt and
ideology to ensure personal happiness based not on abstract faith but on individual determination
of worth. Thus, in the end, he is saved, by faith in himself and faith in the power of the chaotic,
cold-heartedness of the universe.
Camus, in this ending, not only helps to redefine secular humanism for a generation
scarred by the inhumanity of righteous war, but to present a new template for humanity to
recover from the traumas of near-annihilation and find not only existence but the essence of
happiness.
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Works Cited
Badieu, Alain with Nicolas Truong. In Praise of Love. Trans. Peter Bush. Paris: The New Press.
2012
Camus, Albert. The Stranger. Trans. Matthew Ward. New York: Random House. 1999.
Esposito, Roberto. Communitas: The Origin and Destiny of Community. Timothy Campbell,
trans. Stanford: Stanford UP. 2010
"Happy, adj.". OED Online. December 2012. Oxford University Press. 3 March 2013. Web
Taylor, Mark C. and Thomas A. Carlson eds. The Neighbor: Three Inquiries in Political
Theology. Chicago: Chicago UP. 2005.