Absurdism; The Stranger by Albert Camus

Hannah Elshennawi

Dr. O'Brien

Language and Literature 2

02/01/2025

Absurdism; The Stranger by Albert Camus

The Stranger by Albert Camus is a philosophical book that both argues that life has no meaning in a positive point of view and emphasizes the concept of absurdism. Camus expresses many ideas of freedom of acceptance and the inevitability of death, and He does this through the narrator/main character of the story named Meursault. 

In the story, after Meursault sends his mother to a nursing home because he can barely afford to take care of her, she dies in the home at the start of the story. He goes on living, the next day going to a beach, and watching a comedy movie with a girl named Marie. He lives his life unphased by the consequences of his actions and doesn't show much emotion throughout the story. His friend, Raymond, had beaten his mistress in response to her cheating on him and Meursault doesn’t have much of a reaction and simply acts as a witness for him in court because Raymond asked him to. Raymond, Marie, and Meursault all go to the beach and encounter the brother of Raymond’s former mistress with a group of people and Raymond and him get into a fight. After the fight, Raymond intended to shoot him as he was laying in the sand but Meursault instead took the gun and when alone with the man (referred to as “the Arab”) he shot him. He goes to jail and attempts passing his time thinking back to his past and looking forward to things he knows won’t happen such as seeing Marie on Saturday as he usually did. In the end, he gets taken to court and they talk more about him having “no soul” for the fact that he didn't cry at his mother’s funeral more than the actual crime and he ends up being executed.

Meursault is the embodiment of absurdism in many ways. Meursault's indifference to his mother’s death and social expectations, and his killing of the Arab, his interest in everything, his lack of morality, and emotional detachment all display such. To start, Meursault doesn’t mourn his mother’s death nor expresses any sorrow or sadness about the situation. This fact comes back to get him in court when the other side argues that he killed the Arab out of pure evilness and attempts to back this argument up with how his reaction to his mother’s death was immoral. Although the case was about him killing a man, the majority of the other side’s reasoning had to do with what he did before and after his mother’s death since it’s a societal expectation to mourn and cry at the death of others, especially family. On page 115 it states “Throughout the whole absurd life I'd lived, a dark wind had been rising toward me from somewhere deep in my future… What did other people’s deaths or a mother’s love matter to me.” his displays Camus’s idea that life is meaningless and death is inevitable so there is no use mourning or overthinking it, it won't change anything.

Additionally, Meursault again expresses the inevitably of death before his own death after he finds out he will be publicly executed. On page 109 it states, “Whether it was now or twenty years from now, I would still be the one dying. I’d be thinking in twenty years when it all would come down to the same thing anyway. Since we’re all going to die, it’s obvious that when and how don’t matter.” This explains how Camus shows that in life, you could die any day and it wouldn’t matter, in the end, you’d still be dead. That where and when would be irrelevant because it would have the same outcome. This further emphasizes his absurdist belief that life is meaningless. Then, at the very end of the story, Meursault expresses Camus’s belief in which acceptance leads to freedom. Meursault explains how his mother had gotten a fiance at the end of her life as a way to have a new beginning and stated on page 116, “Maman must have felt free then and ready to live it all again.” This shows how his mother accepting she was at her end, allowed her to, as Meursault said, feel free. After he says this, he himself began to accept his own upcoming death and started to feel happier. The text says on page 116-117 “I felt ready to live it all again too… I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world… I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again.” Furthermore, Camus greatly explains his belief that acceptance does in fact lead to happiness and true freedom as well as his belief of absurdism.

In conclusion, The Stranger classic expresses beliefs of absurdism, acceptance leading to freedom and happiness, and inevitably of death. Albert Camus portrays these beliefs through the main character, Meursault, and explains not only Meursault’s mindset in these different situations but his overall thought process and how he deals with these things. Meursault’s reactions and thoughts during all of these situations, although mostly subtle and blunt, just show the true meaning of absurdism.