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- Meursault is our narrator, and he tells it as he sees, feels, and thinks it. Not a hint of third-person omniscience exists... because the story is purely subjective from Meursault's point-of-view. Even though he's observant, Meursault makes no attempt to empathize with or understand the other characters.
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Meursault, the narrator, is a young man living in Algiers. After receiving a telegram informing him of his mother’s death, he takes a bus to Marengo, where his mother had been living in an old persons’ home. He sleeps for almost the entire trip.
- Part One: Chapter 6
A summary of Part One: Chapter 6 in Albert Camus's The...
- Part Two: Chapters 1 & 2
Meursault’s atheism and indifference to his mother’s death...
- Character List
The protagonist and narrator of The Stranger, to whom the...
- Key Facts
In-depth Facts: Narrator In Part One, Meursault narrates the...
- Part One: Chapter 6
Everything you need to know about the narrator of Albert Camus's The Stranger, written by experts with you in mind.
In-depth Facts: Narrator In Part One, Meursault narrates the events of the story almost as they happen. In Part Two, he narrates the events of his trial from jail, then moves into a more immediate narration in Chapter 5.
At first glance, the plot of Albert Camus’ The Stranger seems to comprise a sequence of random events in the life of the protagonist, Meursault. However, the novella’s events suggest a dark and forbidding meaning: in a universe that is irrational and indifferent to human suffering and experience, people desperately struggle to explain ...
- The Stranger Themes
- Analysis of Key Moments in The Stranger
- Style, Tone, and Figurative Language
- Symbols
Alienation/Isolation
Meursault is the titular example of alienation from oneself, society, and nature. He separates himself from othersby his inability or unwillingness to connect on a deep level. His emotions are stilted and often nonexistent. He continually presents himself awkwardly, or not as those around him expect. Meursault has no desire to say goodbye to his mother or connect with the mourners in the room with him. He thinks at one point, “it was hard for me to believe [the mourners] really existed”. Afte...
Meaninglessness of Life
As a reader learns from Meursault’s first-person narration, he does not find life to be meaningful. He rejects religious meaning and secular whenever it comes his way. There is a particularly poignant moment in which Meursault’s boss becomes angry at him for not showing more excitement over the possibility of moving to Paris. To Meursault, one city is as good as another. He reacts the same way to Marie’s proposal, his trial, the complexities of the legal system, and eventually, his death sent...
Sadness
Sadness or a lack of sadness permeates the novel. It begins with a funeral. At the home, there are mourners, one of which is so sad she won’t stop crying. Meursault feels none of the same emotion. His lack of emotion at the funeral comes back to haunt him at his trial when witnesses testify to his uncaring attitude. As he kills the Arab Meursault says that it felt like “knocking four quick times on the door of unhappiness”. He knew exactly what he was getting into, but embraced it anyway. Oth...
Meursault goes to the beach and movies with MarieHe is invited to dinner with Raymond, hears his story, and writes a letter for him.The next day Raymond assaults his girlfriend and the police stop him.The Stranger is filled with multilayered symbols and enunciated through Camus’s straightforward writing style. He uses figurative language minimally and gets straight to the point of what Meursault is feeling (or not feeling) and saying. The first line of the novel is a famous, poignant example: “Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don’t know”...
The Sun
The sun is an oppressive force on the novel. It’s nearly unbearable at the beginning of the novel as the funeral procession moves towards the cemetery and almost kills Thomas Perez. When Meursault is about to murder the Arab he places some of the blame on the sun. It was, he states, as though “the whole beach, throbbing in the sun, was pressing on [his] back”. The sun presses him forward toward his fate. It is an ever-present force in the novel that he can’t escape.
The Crucifix
Towards the end of the novel, while Meursault is speaking with the magistrate, he pulls out a crucifix. He asks Meursault to examine his faith and brandishes the item almost like a weapon. It represents a specific world view that Meursault does not adhere to, but which makes up one of the two conflicting points of view in absurdist philosophy.
The Sea
Throughout The Stranger, Meursault returns to the sea. He is there when he meets up with Marie the day after getting back from his mother’s funeral. It is a symbol of happiness, relief, and respite from the heat. The most physically joyous parts of the novel take place in or near the sea. When he, Marie, and Raymond are on the beach at Masson’s house the same pleasure can be seen as they move in and out of the water.
The narrator of The Stranger by Albert Camus is Meursault, and he is, indeed, isolated from the world around him. This isolation is clearly a choice, something he chose for his life long before...
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