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The Stranger
Meursault tells the reader his mother died in the first line of the novel. She was living at The Home for Aged Persons in Marengo near Algiers and the reason there weren't many people at her...
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The Stranger
Thanks for the question! On the bright side, your essay prompt is so broad that you can write about practically anything from Albert Camus’s novel The Stranger. The downside is that it is...
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The Stranger
Symbolism in The Stranger tends to be occupied with either absurdism or its opposite. For example, the sun which irritates Mersault's eyes and gleams off the blade of the Arab represents nature....
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The Stranger
The fact that you found no point or purpose to this book IS the point Camus is trying to make. This book was written as an attempt to explore his philosophy of Abusurdism which states that the...
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The Stranger
The Myth of Sisyphus begins by explicitly posing a question which permeates Camus's work, including The Stranger: Is life worth living? This, according to Camus, is the only truly essential...
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The Stranger
In French, the language in which Albert Camus wrote, “étranger” means both “stranger” and “foreigner.” Both meanings fit well with themes of distance and separation that dominate the...
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The Stranger
The narrator, Meursault, speaking of course in 1st person, is hardly what is called a 'reliable narrator,' and is a far cry from an omniscient narrator (one who knows everything in the story and...
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The Stranger
Camus' The Stranger is so tightly constructed that he has introduced most, if not all, major developments in the early parts of the story through foreshadowing, with the result that Meursault's...
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The Stranger
You could use Colonialism as a critical theory. The novel takes place in Algeria presumably in the early 1940’s since the book was published in 1942. France occupied Algeria from 1830 until...
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The Stranger
If you remember, in Camus' short story "The Guest," the Arab stands at the crossroads of freedom and prison. Given a choice, ironically, he walks toward prison. This is Camus' assumption...
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The Stranger
In Albert Camus' The Stranger, Meursault is a man of little emotional depth. As he sits beside his mother's casket during the vigil, concern for the death of another—even his mother—seems alien...
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The Stranger
Albert Camus's novella The Stranger is a reflection of his French-Algerian heritage, and should be read in that context. The ramifications for France of its colonization of Algiers in 1830 and...
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The Stranger
This is a difficult point to argue for, because Meursault himself struggles to articulate it in a satisfactory manner both to himself and to others. As with nearly all elements of the narrative of...
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The Stranger
The reference tells us that the story is set during wartime. Specifically, it is set in French Algeria during the Second World War. France had been speedily conquered by German forces, and a large...
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The Stranger
In The Stranger by Albert Camus, Meursault is implicated in the murder of an Arab man. The Arab is the brother of Raymond Sintes' mistress. Raymond (Meursault's friend), raises the ire of his...
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The Stranger
"Tragic hero" is not an appropriate term to use in existential literature. It is a classic term, and many conditions must exist before it can be applied, the foremost being a character who "falls...
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The Stranger
Camus' novel is expressive, primarily, of themes relating to absurdity and the difficulty of rendering life meaningful. Mersault is a character who denies conventional and formal explanations of...
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The Stranger
The trip to the sea represents change in Meursault's life. This change is a deviation to his normal routine, which will put him under the influence of others. The reason that the sea is chosen is...
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The Stranger
Albert Camus's The Stranger is considered timeless and universal because it is an existential text which deals with the intrinsic nature of life, the insignificance of the individual, life's...
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The Stranger
Meursault conforms by engaging in human relationships (Marie and Raymond) even though he tries to stay as emotionally removed as possible. He also goes to a job every day. This is perhaps his most...
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The Stranger
Camus's character Meursault in "The Stranger" has a free will. Because of his free will he always has a choice. His choice is what makes him free. Before he became calm and realized his free will,...
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The Stranger
One of the dominant themes of The Stranger (also translated sometimes as The Ousider) is the absurdity of human existence. Mersault's life simply collapses piece by piece, with no rhyme or reason,...
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The Stranger
Mersault says he is more certain about his own beliefs that the chaplain is about his. He dismisses the chaplains concern about him because at least he knew the truth and he also knew he was going...
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The Stranger
Mersault seems to maintain a very similar dispassionate emotional distance from his mother as he does with the other characters in the story. He does not cry at her funeral and the lack of emotion...
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The Stranger
For a good chunk of The Stranger, the protagonist Meursault has absolutely no dread or anxiety in any regards of his life. After killing an Arab man, Meursault shows neither satisfaction nor...
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The Stranger
Just like Maman's funeral, the day of the shooting at the beach, and the magistrate and chaplain's questioning of him, Meursault focuses on how others determine and judge him silently. He realizes...
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The Stranger
What is certainly odd is Meursault's lack of a reaction. Upon hearing news of his mother's death, his is dispassionate, nonchalant, as if he's heard of a poor weather forecast for the upcoming...
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The Stranger
In The Stranger, Meursault is Camus' absurdist (similar to existentialism) hero: he loves life, hates death, and scorns the gods. Instead of crying at his mother's funeral, he refuses to...
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The Stranger
Meursault's lawyer, upon meeting him, is a bit horrified at Meursault's apparent lack of emotion, insight and instinct for self-preservation. Meursault seems not to be aware, nor to care, that his...
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The Stranger
The first thing you need to do is develop some sort of thesis for your paper. Do you believe that Mersault was fairly treated during the trial or that the death sentence was fundamentally unfair?...
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The Stranger
In The Stranger, Camus gives us an absurd hero in Meursault who loves life, hates death, and scorns the gods. He also loves swimming, sex, sleeping, eating, smoking, and going to the movies--all...
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The Stranger
Meursault's tone as narrator of The Stranger is apathetic and detatched. He doesn't show much of an interest in anything other than physical pleasure, and even then he shows no enthusiasm. Albert...
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The Stranger
Thomas Perez serves two very important functions. First, he is the moral opposite of Meursault. While Meursault is bothered, inconvenienced, and bored by his mother's funeral, Thomas Perez is...
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The Stranger
The protagonist, Meursault, refuses to justify himself to the other characters and the reader. By narrating the story through Meursault's indifference, the reader is drawn into his point of view,...
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The Stranger
"The Outsider" or "The Stranger" as it is more popularly known, is set in Algeria, primarily in the capitol of Algiers. The main character is Meursault, a Frenchman, who is accused of killing a...
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The Stranger
One of the points of Camus' novel is that since there is no underlying, inherent meaning in life (though Camus disclaimed existentialism), meaning comes directly through sensory experience, and...
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The Stranger
Meursault, after all, did kill another man. His best defense would be that he acted in self-defense, but the text makes it sound like deliberate and possibly premeditated murder. Camus was opposed...
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The Stranger
There is no direct textual reference to "noble" or "nobility" in Camus' The Stranger. Camus rejected the idea that he was an existentialist but sought to find a unity between an absurd world and...
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The Stranger
The main distinction from the actual philosophy of existentialism in Camus’ fictive work is his concentration not on the question of whether existence precedes essence (the foundation of the...
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The Stranger
A literary hero, according to Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey, is not necessarily someone who ends up doing good, but is the protagonist or narrator of the story who goes through some sort of life...
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The Stranger
There is much in way of meaning within the excerpt from Camus's The Stranger. Its meaning can be set against some of the thoughts that the Priest offers earlier to him: Every stone here sweats...
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The Stranger
Meursault should be found guilty because he killed someone. He did not kill out of hate, premeditation, insanity or involuntarily. That is all irrelevant. Meursault killed for a very selfish...
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The Stranger
Readings of the breadth of Camus's work suggest that he did not believe that life is meaningless; it would be more accurate to say that Camus was more interested in exploring the question of how we...
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The Stranger
Meursault is a nihilist. This means that he doesn't believe in anything, be it God, love, or country. It is not surprising, then, that he is so emotionally detached from everyone, including both...
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The Stranger
The Prosecutor is trying to show that Meursault is an unfeeling, nihilistic person with criminal tendencies. Because Meursault is so indifferent to the rules of society, the Prosecutor has a...
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The Stranger
The answer to this question is a complex one partly because of Camus' innovative psychological style and partly because of symbolism and foreshadowing. Firstly, Camus believed that the...
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The Stranger
This is one of the more troubling aspects of this famous novel. Although Camus himself said that colonialism was not the issue in this book, and it is widely recognised to be more about...
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The Stranger
During his first few days in prison, Meursault finds a scrap of newspaper in his cell. On it is written a story about a Czech man who left his homeland to find his fortune. Years later, now wealthy...
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The Stranger
Raymond Sintes is a foil to Meursault. This means that he provides a contrast to the protagonist, emphasizing certain characteristics of his. If Meursault is amoral, his neighbor Sintes is...
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The Stranger
In general, he implies this everywhere. But his indifference is often indirect. One example is in the courtroom when he makes his statement. He says he didn’t intend on killing the Arab, but he...
