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The idea of existentialism is used throughout the literary work The Stranger by
Albert Camus to expose the true self and cold nature of human beings, contrary of
Camus' original writing style of absurdism to show Mersault's realization of the
meaningless of human life
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Existentialists accept the perils and
consequences of their choices and actions then keep their commitment to wherever it
leads
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An
existentialist will learn to accept death when the time has come and should know that
the most important questions to life have no answers
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During the second beach fight when
Meursault shoots the Arab with Raymond's gun one of the Arabs draws his knife and
holds it up to Meursault, Meursault isn't bothered by the Arab's threatening action, it
was the light from the sun that reflected into his eyes along with the intense heat that
was bothering him "The scorching blade slashed at my eyelashes and stabbed at my
stinging eyes
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In any case Meursault decided to shoot him
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"Then he wanted to know if I had hired an attorney (the magistrate)
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" (Camus,
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63) Meursault didn't understand why he would need an attorney for his case because it
was simple to him, he had murdered a man and was now ready to pay his action
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In the beginning of part two Meursault expresses his true feelings for Maman's
death, those of hate and dislike
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At one time or another all normal people have wished their loved ones were
dead
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"I explained to him, however, that my nature was such that my physical needs often got
in the way of my feelings," (Camus, 65) Meursault shows this characteristic throughout
part one of the book, during Maman's burial he was very tired and kept falling asleep
and was only aware was Maman's death and the people that were in the same room as
him
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When the time came for Meursault had accepted his death
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" (Camus, 123) There was no
difference between life and death, everything was the same to him such as when Marie
asked if he would marry her and he said "I said it didn't make any difference to me and
that we could if she wanted to" (Camus, 41) Meursault would not care what happened
in the end
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"I felt as I understood why at the end of her
life she had taken a 'fiancé
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The absurd refers to the conflict
between the human tendency to seek value and meaning in life and the human inability
to find any, absurd does not mean "logically impossible," but rather "humanly
impossible
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"I explained to him
that I wasn't desperate
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" (Camus, 116) Meursault rejects the
chaplain's offer telling him that he has no interest in God
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" (Camus, 117)
Meursault is an absurd hero figuratively and literally
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On a literal level, he exemplifies the absurd characteristics of revolt, freedom, and
passion outlined by Camus in "The Myth of Sisyphus
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This includes, smoking, falling asleep during
the vigil of his dead mother and going to the beach the next day
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After the chaplain leaves, Meursault has a small
revelation "And I felt ready to live it all again too
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Finding it so much like myself-so like a
brother, really-I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again
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In conclusion Meursault portrays many existentialist characteristics and actions
throughout the literary work and it can be inferred that The Stranger was an
existentialist novel when his writing style was one of an Absurdist
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Meursault accepts his own death and the indifference of the world to his death
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Introduction:
To get an established foothold in the ideas expressed in this “two-hour-novel”, it’s
vital to understand the environment in which Algerian born Albert Camus conceived
these ideas
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Camus decided to write articles about
the impoverished Arabs living under desperate conditions brought upon them by the
French rule in Algeria
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It was during this time Camus wrote The Stranger
and introduced his revised theory of Kierkegaard’s absurd, which dealt with the
meaninglessness in life due to the inevitability of death
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However, Camus was never satisfied with the attitude of moral indifference that
came with Kierkegaard’s theory of the absurd
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My speculation is that
Camus’ realized the small potential of one man’s actions and found that each man
should be responsible for his actions in this metaphilosophical “best possible world”, and
it may well be that this realization is what brought Camus closer to existentialist
philosophy
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His perception of the highest art was that it should contain elements of
diverse complexity while keeping a balanced style that was uniform and
straightforward
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Even though Sartre’s
conception of this theory was highly controversial, the philosophy of The

Stranger maintains strong existentialist views
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Existentialism:
Even though The Stranger flirts with many philosophical schools, I will focus on
Existentialism
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In

Existentialism (1972) theologian John Macquarrie states that “philosophical thinking
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begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling,
living human individual”
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Thus
the existentialist must look upon this world with a sense of confusion to truly feel the
meaninglessness of life, and use the meaninglessness to awaken the desire to create
meaning
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To explain the concept of essence we must go back to the Platonic essentialism
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Contrary to Essence we have accidentals, which represent the
superficial, alterable aspects of the subject
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However, the fact that we have hair is merely an accident, we can survive
without hair and therefore it is not essential
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By saying that existence precedes essence, we can insinuate that one can be the
man/woman one wishes to be regardless of so called “human flaws”
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A person is defined only as he/she acts
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He/she is solely responsible for his/her actions
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If
he/she uses his/her existence for evil, this person has defined himself/herself as an evil
person
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Simply put, every person is responsible for his/her

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actions since that person was well aware of the consequences at the time of acting
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Analysis:
Part one of The Stranger depicts Mersault as a man living only through his senses,
this prevents him from being part of the society he lives, which is the ideal christian
society where man looks outwards and to god for meaning
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In part one, Mersault is oblivious
to the absurd that Camus has fabricated, but nevertheless Mersault is affected by the
absurd
...
Mersault
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Even though he attends the funeral it is obvious that it merely an excuse created
to conceal his real agenda
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However, there is interesting irony
to part one
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The ironical aspect is that
Mersault decided to take Raymond’s gun to prevent Raymond from making any rash
decisions, but it is this gun that Mersault uses to kill the Arab
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Part two introduces justice as an arbitrary concept
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Though the accusers find that since Mersault fired four additional shots,
it was in demoniac brutality he killed the Arab and therefore Mersault must have fired
the four additional shots out of pleasure
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Meursault refuses to pretend he has been born again, since being emotionally
honest rises above self-preservation, thus Mersault accepts the idea of punishment as a
consequence of his actions
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The idea of the Arab as a man with a family is irrelevant, as Camus tells
nothing about the victim other than the facts that he is dead and how he died
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The humanity of the victim and inhumanity of murdering
another human being is seemingly beside the point
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Kierkegaard introduced religion as being one of the things that bring meaning
to an otherwise meaningless life
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Camus however regarded
the actual act of a “leap of faith” to be “philosophical suicide”
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Mersault could’ve been saved, but he
considered punishment to be the most honest thing to choose
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(2
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However, Kierkegaard and Camus dismiss the viability of this option
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Some existentialists think the pursuit of meaning
might have meaning to itself, so why give up the good old fight if the pursuit of
meaning might have meaning? Mersault does not pretend to adapt values because those
values would be meaningless to him if he had already accepted his punishment
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(3
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Camus preferred
this solution because accepting the absurd absolute freedom is achieved, and by
“debunking” religious moral constraints a person can be content from the meaning he
has created
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The emotional and moral honesty the meanings he has constructed
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The theme of The Stranger is that the Absurd flexes it’s authority over every
action
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He does
not find nor create meaning in every action, as suggested by the killing of the Arab and
the evident reluctance to discuss anything else but the heat and the sun
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When Mersault finally faces death he feels as if the “gentle
indifference of the world” is revealed to him, which he sees as more fair to the man
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trapped in meaninglessness than a created justice system that forced a meaning onto an
otherwise meaningless action (the killing of the Arab)
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Four more shots at the Arab’s corpse did
not change anything; the Arab died of one shot, and four more did not render him
“more dead”
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The trial does not reach out to his perception of
what happened, therefore this trial is a lie to our protagonist
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This is
why society must execute this pariah to protect itself from Mersault’s meaninglessness
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Would you kick a corpse just for the heck of
it?

Each man, according to his ability (to be held responsible)
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Existentialism and Albert Camus
What is Existentialism?
Existentialism: the study of existence from the first-hand perspective of human beings
that tends to emphasize our personal, or subjective experiences, our freedom and
responsibility, and our aloneness
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Dinosaurs
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Culture began questioning the authority
and truths of the Church
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)
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In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the scientific world view became
dominant - that everything can be measured, reduced to its parts, and understood
logically
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War
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" While civilization had been seen as the opposite of brutality and
barbarity, World Wars I and II showed the superficial nature of supposedly civilized
nations
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Existentialist ideas emerged as a way to cope with changing reality
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Most existentialists would call this behavior
courageous
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There is no such thing as
complete "objectivity" We are ultimately alone in a universe that doesn't care about us
People have different responses to this question
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Self-destructive
tendencies may come with this mindset
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You probably don't want to get into a car with one of them for the obvious
reasons
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Where does Camus fit in?
While Camus is often put in the existentialist camp, he rejected the label
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He
believed in the meaninglessness of the universe and that the fact of death makes life
essentially meaningless

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