Book Review: 'The Stranger' by Albert Camus

'The Stranger' is a novel published for the first time in 1942 to establish the meaningless and absurd world of Albert Camus, by tracing the behavior of 'Meursault' the story's hero, from the moment he received the news of his mother's death with indifference, and ending with his appearance in the court after killing an Arab man. The French newspaper "Le Monde" placed it in the first place among the list of the 100 best books of the twentieth century.

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.

This stranger opens his story to us with this introduction, which quickly captures the lack of the usual social or moral behaviors in the individual, and in this case, 'Meursault' in such situations!; He does not feel sad about the death of his mother, who put her in a shelter three years ago because of his inability to spend on her, rather he does not remember when exactly did she die, and when he received the news he answered no more than 'yes', for he did not find the urgent need to say more than that. -As he says-.

Meursault knew that in the midst of these funeral rites he had to play the role of a grieving son, but actually he did not feel anything in front of the lifeless corpse of his old mother; He was smoking and sipping coffee quietly among the people who came to farewell her body silently out of respect for her soul, Meursault was feeling as if these people had gathered here to judge him while he was sitting in front of his mother's coffin for not shedding a single tear, when all these feelings cut him with a wild desire to meet 'Mary' his girlfriend and spend a beautiful night with her.

The next day, the day they took his mother for burial, he was complaining about the sweltering heat, and the long distance they had come to reach the cemetery, he refused to be alone with her for the last time, and when he arrived and was asked about his mother’s age, he only said that she was an old woman -of course he did not know her actual age-. After the 'boring' burial ceremony ended, he felt that everything was done quickly and naturally, so he began planning to go with 'Mary' who was amazed when she learned that his mother had died only yesterday on a trip to the beach, but he did not know then that this trip will be his last trip, summed up in firing 5 bullets at an Arab man because the dagger of this Arab had shone under the scorching sun, which infuriated him and pushed him to kill!

Some say that there is no logic in this act, it is an irrational act that does not contain any real reason for a person to commit such a crime, but Meursault has a justification for that, saying: "My physical needs greatly hinder my feelings". For this reason, he did not show any feelings of sadness over the death of his mother because he was tired of traveling, and this is exactly what happened to him while he was killing the Arab man because he was under the blazing sun that started to burn him and hurt his head and angered him, and for this he also refused to express his feelings towards Mary, who for him is nothing but a tool to satisfy his sexual needs, Camus says:

She was wearing a pair of my pajamas with the sleeves rolled up. When she laughed, I wanted her again. A minute later she asked me if I loved her. I told her it didn't mean anything but that I didn't think so. She looked sad.

The second part of the novel begins with Meursault's trial after killing that Arab guy. This trial, which soon its subject turned from a murder to a lengthy discussion about the strange character of Meursault and his inhuman behavior, to make it appear that he was accused of the crime of not showing his grief over his mother's death and not about committing a murder!.

We can regard the whole trial as a persistent attempt by humans to justify the world around them, when they are faced with something illogical, they try to deter it as impossible and do their best to justify it.

On the day of the trial, the court knows that Meursault never cried his mother, and even refused to see her for the last time and that he smoked and drank coffee where his mother's body was. The day after the mother's death, this man started an affair, went to see a comedy movie, and then went to relax at the beach; He must be a real beast with no moral feeling that must threaten society as a whole!! A beast with no soul and incapable of regret who deserves death, hence Attorney general declares: “I accuse this man of burying his mother with the heart of a criminal” and demanded that the maximum punishment be inflicted on him by his public execution by guillotine.

That night, Meursault embraced the idea that human existence has no greater meaning and abandoned all hope for the future and only then did he feel the happiness and the sweetness of indifference.

Albert Camus sums up the significance of this novel as: "In our society any man who does not weep at his mother's funeral runs the risk of being sentenced to death; Why do we cry? Sooner or later we will all die".

Book Information

Book: The Stranger

Author: Albert Camus

Originally published: 1942

Pages: 123

Genre: Absurdism