Albert Camus’ masterpiece, The Stranger, explores the absurdity of human existence in a world of nothingness and is a profound meditation on life, death, and freedom.
The Stranger is often described as the literature of absurdity. The Stranger centers on the protagonist, Meursault, as he follows his mother’s funeral and his subsequent travels in the village. After his mother’s death, Meursault romances Marie, listens to Raymond’s troubles, and advises Salamano when he loses his dog. Then, on an uninvited visit to the beach, he shoots and kills an Arab and faces trial. The Stranger is a novel published in 1942 when Camus was 29 years old.
“Algeria, the setting of The Stranger, was Camus’s homeland. Algeria is a former French colony that has since gained its independence, so Camus is often mistaken for an Algerian immigrant, but he was French from the start. At the time of its colonization, Algeria was not considered a separate land by the French, but rather an extension of the French realm, and in that sense, a land of opportunity for new beginnings for the French. Camus’s parents are among them, and Camus is a Frenchman who has nothing to do with Arabs or immigration. The main focus of the novel is Meursault’s motive for killing. Why did he kill the Arab, and why did he pause before firing the last four shots? Meursault gives an answer that people don’t understand. The sun was too hot.
People use Meursault’s behavior at his mother’s funeral as evidence in court to prove that his murder was a premeditated, brutal crime. They try to interpret a tragic event (Meursault recounted his mother’s death with a straightforward tone) as a stereotypical way of thinking. They discuss how he can’t shed a tear when his mother dies, how he dares to smoke and drink coffee in front of her body, and how he behaves the day after the funeral, as if this defines how a normal human being should behave when sad or happy.
I mentioned earlier that Camus’s novels are the literature of absurdity, and one absurdity that can be found in these novels is this. A situation in which the most human behavior is said to be the most human behavior, but it leaves out the humanity of one of the people involved. In the novel, Meursault excludes himself, speaks about himself, and takes a step back from the action to judge the case, bringing in other actions to judge the case. In the end, Meursault is commuted to death. The end of the novel shows the psychology of Meursault, who stuck to being human until the end among people who only conform to social norms, not to being human as a human being.
I could understand why her mother had always toyed with the idea of rebuilding her life by meeting her fiancé. The evenings in that nursing home must have been a wistful respite for her as life faded away; even so close to death, she must have felt liberated and had the heart to live again in this world. I have no right to mourn her death. Just as intense anger washed away the bitterness and gave me new hope, so too did I want to rebuild my life.
Looking at the starry sky, I felt for the first time the affectionate indifference of the world win my heart; it was like a brother to me, and I was happy, and I feel happy now. When all is accomplished, when I am executed, and my one remaining wish is fulfilled, that I may be greeted by a crowd of onlookers with shouts of hatred, I shall not be lonely.
By recognizing his mother as a human being, he reveals how he did not grieve for her unnecessarily, and how he perceives the world as he stands in his final moments. ‘The Stranger’ Meursault, who had to become an outsider in order to exist as himself. A place on the edge of France called Algeria. The artist’s own marginal position as a Frenchman who moved to Algeria. The things that happened inside the society that seemed to be integrated into the society but were not touched by his story, and himself looking at them from the outside. The Stranger makes us think about what it means to be ‘me’ in a society where these things are mixed together and people are not accepted as human beings in their own right.
