Study Questions
1. What does Meursault think about the magistrate when he first meets him?

2. What does Meursault’s lawyer look like?

3. What charge against Meursault, besides murder, is the lawyer concerned about?

4. Is the lawyer optimistic about Meursault’s case?

5. How did Meursault feel about his mother?

6. How does the lawyer react to Meursault during their first meeting?

7. What does the typist do during Meursault’s meeting with the magistrate?

8. How does Meursault react to the magistrate when the magistrate starts talking about God?

9. How does Meursault feel sitting in the magistrate’s office?

10. Does Meursault accept the fact that he is a criminal?

Answers
1. Meursault finds him to be “highly intelligent and, on the whole, likable enough.”

2. The lawyer is a “small, plump, youngish man with sleek, black hair.”

3. He is concerned about the charge of “callousness.”

4. When the lawyer first meets with Meursault, he tells him that he has a good chance of getting off, if Meursault follows his advice.

5. Meursault tells the lawyer that he had been “quite fond of Mother.”

6. He is repulsed by Meursault and annoyed at his answers.

7. The clerk types an answer he assumes Meursault will give to the magistrate’s question about Meursault’s mother, but then has to cross it out when Meursault responds differently than expected.

8. Meursault says, “He rather alarmed me.”

9. He feels hot, uncomfortable, and bothered by annoying flies.

10. Meursault tells us: “Somehow it was an idea to which I never could get reconciled.”