The Stranger (Cyclopedia of Literary Characters)
At a glance:
- Author: Albert Camus
- First Published: 1942
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Existentialism
- Time of Work: Late 1930’s to early 1940’s
- Setting: Algeria
- Genres: Long fiction, Existential literature, Philosophical realism
- Subjects: Colonialism, Murder or homicide, 1940’s, Alienation, 1930’s, Capital punishment, Trials, Death or dying, Funeral rites or ceremonies, Existentialism, Algeria or Algerians
- Locales: Algiers, Algeria
Characters Discussed
Meursault (mur-SOHLT), a young clerk in a business office in Algiers, Algeria. Although not totally disengaged from humanity, Meursault, the narrator and main character, maintains only unemotional and uncommitted relationships with others, even his mother. When called to a home for the aged in Marengo, fifty miles away, for his mother’s funeral, he shows no desire to view her body for the last time and shocks the other residents of the home by his seeming indifference. Though physically intimate with his Arab girlfriend, Marie, he regards her desire for...
[The entire page is 880 words long]
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