would represent a different set of problems. After all, distant fathers aren't so unusual in the lives of many children.

From the very first line of The Stranger, Meursault is obviously disinterested in his mother's life. He is going to her funeral but can't remember, exactly, when she died. He doesn't celebrate her life or even speak of her as a person. He neglects to report on his own childhood except in the ways it was typical.

At his mother's funeral, he notes that her friends "came in, there were about ten in all. They floated into the blinding light without a sound." He comments that he could see them but not hear them. They start crying, and all he can wish for is that they would stop. The opening scene doesn't make clear how Meursault related to his mother in childhood, because he is trying his best to not be anything more than physically present during her funeral.

Later in the book, Old Salamano tells Meursault that, surely, everyone understands why he sent his mother to a home, since he couldn't afford to care for her. Several times during the book, Meursault is asked if he loved his mother and, inevitably, he answers with something like, "I suppose so."

He reports in the first chapter that he was once close to his mother, that she fed and reared him, but now he is an adult. As an adult, he had little to say to her, so their relationship withered. His relationship to her as a child was normal, warm and without conflict, yet he finds no need to report on the details of it or of any nostalgia about his childhood.

In Part One, chapter one, Meursault reasons that his mother got used to the home where she'd been living in the care of others for three years before her death, and he rationalizes the infrequency of his visits by saying that they took up his Sundays. It is fair to say that he was indifferent about her, despite using the term "Maman," instead of the more distant and formal "Mère."

When Meursault travels to her funeral he is annoyed by the people he feels are judging him. He wants to smoke during the vigil and walk in the countryside, and he sees having to turn his attention to her as an inconvenience. When he is asked her age, he isn't sure of "the exact number."

At the end of chapter two, Meursault observes that "Maman was buried now" and "really, nothing had changed."

In Part Two, chapter one, Meursault thinks "he probably did love Maman" and tells his attorney that he would have preferred that she hadn't died. Meursault is, by his own description, more attuned to his physical condition than his inner life. He is a sensualist, and he doesn't spend much time considering emotions.

In The Stranger byAlbert 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 mistress' brother when he beats her up for her supposed infidelity to him (Raymond).

When Mersault shoots the Arab dead, he is himself thrown into prison to await trial for the murder. At his trial, the judge asks him why he put his mother into a nursing home. Mersault answers that he did not have enough money to take care of her on his own. The judge then asks whether the parting with his mother had caused him any distress. To this question, Mersault neglects to answer either yes or no. Instead, he tells the judge that neither he nor his mother expected much from each other or anyone else. Because of this, Mersault claims that both he and his mother did not experience unnecessary hardship or suffering in adjusting to the new circumstances.

His first question was: Why had I sent mother to an institution? I replied that the reason was simple; I hadn’t enough money to see that she was properly looked after at home. Then he asked if the parting hadn’t caused me any distress. I explained that neither Mother nor I expected much of one another, or for that matter, of anybody else; so both of us had got used to the new conditions easily enough.