The Personality Of Meursault In The Stranger By Albert Camus

Since the moment we understand that people have different beliefs from ours, we start to develop our instinct for lying. This is due to the fact that lying is a part of human nature. We are attracted to lying and the many benefits that it gives us, whether it is to get us out of trouble or to avoid trouble. Hence, we have grown with the idea that lying is part of every human being and that we should use it as long as it doesn’t affect anyone negatively. In his novel, â€Å"The Stranger†, Albert Camus introduces his audience with an unusual main character, Monsieur Meursault. Camus describes Meursault as a man who â€Å"doesn’t play the game†, meaning that he does not participate in the social game of lying in order to be accepted by society. Many of†¦show more content†¦He believes that death is part of the human life, we are born and then we die, as simple as that. He doesn’t try to understand death, he simply accepts it. Most people do no t like to accept that death is something that will eventually happen to them, which completely terrifies them. This is why everybody would describe Meursault as unsentimental because he is not scared to death and he accepts that the time on earth is limited. Not only is Meursault indifferent from society’s standards, but he refuses to lie. He refuses to hide his true feelings regarding his mother’s death by pretending to cry at her funeral. Hence, supporting Camus’ idea that â€Å"To lie is not only to say what isn’t true†¦to say more than is true, and, as far as the human heart is concerned, to express more than one feels†. Meursault certainly challenges moral standards created by society by being honest, which gives him an image of an apathetic man. As the novel continues, Meursault’s integrity continues to be tested. After being arrested for killing an Arab, Meursault faces a trial which would define whether he was guilty or not, to which he expresses â€Å"I thought my case was pretty simple† (Camus 63). Many readers would assume that he refers to the fact that he was a French man who had killed an Arab, and due to the fact that at that time Arab where known as criminals he would have been set free. However, this is far from theShow MoreRelatedEssay Theory of the Absurd1667 Words   |  7 Pagesâ€Å"logic.† Albert Camus, a major writer of the â€Å"Theatre of the Absurd†, construes the â€Å"Absurd† by completely varying this concept through the human personality, exemplified by The Stranger and â€Å"The Myth of Sisyphus.† Camus redefines the absurd by envisioning the â€Å"absurd† as a world consisting of â€Å"the struggle to find meaning where none exists† (A lbert). In The Stranger, Camus writes about a man named Meursault, who one day is notified that his mother passed away. Shockingly, Meursault does notRead More The Stranger Essay962 Words   |  4 PagesThe Stranger The Stranger was originally written in French. When Stuart Gilbert translated the novel, he came across a small problem. â€Å"The title of Camus’ classic novel is difficult to render into English because the French word bears the connotations of both ‘stranger’ and ‘foreigner’ at the same time, and each of these concepts is at play in the novel.† (Mairowitz1) Finding the right translation was crucial because the title is symbolic. â€Å"The Stranger symbolizes the theme of theRead MoreEssay on The Caracter of Meursault in The Stranger (The Outsider)1136 Words   |  5 PagesThe Caracter of Meursault in The Stranger      Ã‚   Albert Camus The Stranger is a startling novel at worst and a haunting classic at best. Camus presents a thrilling story of a man devoid of emotion, even regarding the most sensitive, personal matters. The main character, Meursault shows no feelings after the death of his mother, during his romantic relationship with Marie, or during his trial for the murder of an Arab. Meursault never shows feelings of love, regret, remorse, or sadnessRead MoreAnalysis Of The Book The Stranger Essay1618 Words   |  7 Pages‘Arab’?† muses Harun, the narrator of Kamel Daoud’s The Meursault Investigation (Daoud 138). Daoud’s novel is full of questions and ramblings such as this one that serve as a response to Albert Camus’ The Stranger, which explores the trial of a French Algerian (Meursault) for killing an Arab man. In The Stranger, Camus fails to name the Arab victim and gives him no backstory nor significant reason for the cause of his murd er. In The Meursault Investigation, Daoud gives the dead Arab a name: Musa.Read MoreEssay about Absurdism in The Stranger by Albert Camus1271 Words   |  6 PagesThe Stranger by Albert Camus focuses largely on the concept of absurdism. Camus uses family and personal relationships, or the lack of it thereof, to show the isolation that the main character, Meursault, undergoes in the novel and it’s effect on him overall. Camus utilizes the protagonists’ character development as a tool to further his plot of the novel. The absence of family and personal relationships tied in with the particular recurring topics of the novel are crucial in both the developmentRead MoreEssay The Stranger754 Words   |  4 Pagesnbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;Albert Camus’ The Stranger, is told by narrarator, Meursault . Our speaker seems to be a person detached from feelings, he shows no emotion. Neither the external world in which Meursault lives nor the internal world of his thoughts and attitudes possesses any rational order. He doesn’t have reasons for doing half of the things he does. For these reasons I believe Meursault is determined, but doesn’t know it. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;Our protagonist and narrarator, Meursault is completelyRead More The Stranger Essay1301 Words   |  6 PagesWhile reading The Stranger I noticed that traits that Albert Camus character depicts in the book are closely related to the theories of Sigmund Freud on moral human behavior. Albert Camus portrays his character of Meursault as a numb, emotionless person that seems to mindlessly play out his role in society, acting in a manner that he sees as the way he’s supposed to act, always living in the moment with his instincts driving him, and if the right circumstance presents itself the primal deep seededRead MoreNonconformity and Its Effects728 Words   |  3 Pagesthe path most would be unwilling to take. One such individual is Meursault, the nonconforming protagonist in Albert Camus’s The Stranger. In this critically acclaimed novel, Camus carefully develops Meursault’s nonconformist character and explains how that personality causes a series of events that ultimately ends in Meursault’s death. Meursault’s emotionless behaviors clearly reveal his nonconformity to society. For example, Meursault could never express any sorrow over his mother’s death. When heRead MoreAnalysis Of The Book The Stranger 1191 Words   |  5 PagesThe Characterization of Meursault in The Stranger In The Stranger, the author Albert Camus, initially portrays Meursault as a monotonous character lacking emotions toward the events surrounding his life. Meursault reflects indifference at the thought of his girlfriend s proposal in addition to not demonstrating empathy in relation to Raymond s abusive actions toward his girlfriend. Even so, Meursault s character gradually develops from a detached individual to a dynamic person as secondary charactersRead MoreExistentialism In The Stranger1413 Words   |  6 PagesThe novel, The Stranger, written by French author Albert Camus, is a philosophical fiction piece published in 1942. This book used both Existentialism and Absurdism to promote Meursault s problem throughout the book. Both of these are related to Modernism, which was the aftermath of the industrial revolution. â€Å"Modernism is a philosophical movement that along with cultural trends and changes arose wide-scale and far reaching transformations in western society during the late 19th and early 20th century†(Koofers