Meursault

Life has been defined as the property or quality that distinguishes living organisms from dead organisms and inanimate matter, manifested in functions such as metabolism, growth, reproduction, and response to stimuli or adaptation to the environment originating from within the organism. Further, that very definition from the Webster's dictionary says nothing when it comes to the everyday experiences one faces throughout a lifetime. The experiences one faces makes, breaks, and shapes us into how we act and live. T.S. Eliot's poem "The Hollow Men" portrays a world in which humans lack connections to each other and to G-d. Similarly, the main character, Meursault, from the short novel The Stranger, by Albert Camus, represents a man who does not feel any condition to anyone or anything. Meursault seems not to have a sense of emotion for the occurring actions in his life, and as a result, Camus pictures him as a senseless man. Many people in society go through life-breaking crisis that takes them several weeks even months to get over, meanwhile Meursault goes through some of the most immense problems during his life, yet he shows little emotion to ward his reality.

Meursault shows very little love or sorrow at the fact of his mother's death. A normal man would feel pain and regret for not being by her side while Meursault does not even care much about the date she passed away. Immediately on the first page in the novel, we confront the situation where Meursault's mother dies, and he does not care about it. "Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don't know. I got a telegram from the home: 'Mother deceased. Funeral tomorrow. Faithfully yours.' That doesn't mean anything. Maybe it was yesterday" (3). Meursault does not bother to call back and find information about his mother. Meursault shows no emotion or care for his mother because he sends her away for someone else to take care of her. During the last years of an elder person's life, they are invited to stay with the family in order to become closer with one another. Meursault could care less as he shows no sign of pain, and goes off to do something else. He resembles a figure where an issue as important as death does come as a priority. "We are the hollow men/ We are the stuffed men/ Leaning together/ Headpiece filled with straw" (Lines 1-4). Meursault has a brain like a scarecrow himself, as he has no deep thought on anything. A person uses his or her brain to think with, and if he or she will not use their brain, then they are as good as a stuffed animal. His mother, the one that had to carry him around for nine months, and the one who changed his diapers dies, and Meursault feels that life should go on without giving into his emotions, in any at all. When Meursault went to trial, they convict him for lack of mourning at his mother's funeral. Meursault has nothing to say to that, and for all the reader understands, he does not have any true feeling for his mother.

Further, Meursault also displays the same lack of caring at his mother's vigil. He seems unaffected by the proceedings and he only concentrates on his physical discomfort. For example, when the gentleman asks him if he wishes to view his mother's body, Meursault refuses, "He was moving towards the casket when I stopped him. 'You don't want to"' he said. I answered 'No'" (6). So early in the novel Camus shows us that Meursault has no feeling towards his mother, not even respect to look at his mother who loved him for so many years. Why did Meursault bother going over to the institute if he did not want to see his mother? Meursault even lights up cigarette in front of his mother's casket. "I felt like having a smoke. But I hesitated, because I didn't know if I could do it with maman right there. I thought about it; it didn't matter. I offered the caretaker a cigarette and we smoked" (8). Meursault does not know the meaning of respect and etiquette as it only takes less than a minute to go outside and have a smoke. Meursault figures with his mother already dead, smoking in front of her means nothing. Meursault said "it didn't matter" as if his mother didn't matter, as in she's dead and get over it. In fact everyone does die someday, Meursault proves to us that smoking in front of her does not bother him, nor does his mother's death affect the way he continues to live his life for the next couple of days.

Meursault further shows his lack of caring about for his mother and social convention by going to the beach after the funeral. He goes out for a swim, and bumps into an old acquaintance, a woman named Marie. A normal person with feelings would probably stay home, call relatives, and reminisce about the good and bad times they have shared with that person. Instead, Meursault goes out for a