In the novel, the Outsider Camus portrays a bourgeois society, certain of its virtues and their divine sanction, the self-confident and self-centered spirit of seriousness itself. Through the character of Meursault, he creates a unique image of an outsider and his life in society. Through the theme of strangeness, Camus unveils morals and religious values typical for all people. Humans find themselves cut off from nature and set at odds with their fellows by a competitive scheme that destroys their dignity in a world, not of their own making. Thesis Camus portrays that a person who does not fit society and its values are imprisoned and executed as an outsider and stranger.
The first part portrays Meursault as a real stranger and an outsider unable to cry and express emotions when he attends his mother’s funeral. During the trial, a judge comments: “explain what he meant by “my calmness,” the warden lowered his eyes and stared at his shoes for a moment. Then he explained that I hadn’t wanted to see Mother’s body or shed a single tear and that I’d left immediately the funeral ended, without lingering at her grave” (Camus 111). The strangeness is n his differences and alterations from other people and social norms typical for all people. Meursault settles into a style of life in which inarticulate personal needs and satisfactions dictate spontaneous responses to the demands of nature and others. He goes along with the flow of habits and events. Such is the path of least resistance, except when his inclination moves him otherwise.
Camus underlines that Meursault is perceived as an outsider when he is ‘free’ but accepted as an individual when he is imprisoned. It is possible to say that society does not want to accept those individuals who differ from the rest and express different views and emotions. People are afraid of these differences and interpret them as psychological problems. The most interesting fact is that the judge tries to understand his emotions during the funeral but pays less attention to the crime and his motives. Camus underlines that if Meursault is unable to express his feelings towards his mother, he is incapable of remorse. “Is he not sufficiently punished by the lifelong remorse that is to be his lot? I confidently await your verdict, the only verdict possible–that of homicide with extenuating circumstances” (Camus 132). The social order from which Meursault is alienated is the world of ambition and the desire for advancement, as well as the environment and grief to which all at the burial bear witness. It is the wearing of black as a show of mourning and the sustained sadness that forbids the beginning of a liaison on the day following the burial of Meursault’s mother. This situation creates a conflict between reality and expected outcomes.
The second part portrays that Meursault is a stranger because he does not fit the morals and values established by society, so he should be executed. It is seems that Meursault is accused in senselessness and inability to cry at funerals rather than because of an actual crime he committed. “Another thing I had to recognize was that, until now, I’d had wrong ideas on the subject. For some reason I’d always supposed that one had to go up steps and climb on to a scaffold, to be guillotined” (Camus 140). Camus underlines that the rituals and ceremonies, the institutions and practices, by which society daily reenacts the drama are grounded in a system of values and beliefs that give shape to a living that might otherwise hover precariously close to the abyss of nothingness.
Under the pressure of events, this realization begins to dawn on Meursault. First, in jail, he is called upon to recount the events at the beach. He is questioned about his past and initially draws a blank, noting that he has lost the habit of self-interrogation. Thinking about his past is the beginning of an experiential transformation by which he comes to locate himself in a linear historical world, which location is the precondition of his being able to take personal responsibility for his life. With this dawning recollection of his past, a sense of perspective emerges. The flatness of the experiential landscape undergoes seismic transformation. Preferences are recognized and valued. “And I, too, felt ready to start life all over again. It was as if that great rush of anger had washed me clean, emptied me of hope, and, gazing up at the dark sky spangled with its signs and stars, for the first time, the first, I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe” (Camus 154). An emerging selectivity stylistically transforms the narrative. This appropriation of life comes to consummation in the encounter with the chaplain, when the values by which Meursault had lived are reflectively articulated and defended.
In sum, from the reconstitution of his memory to the reaffirmation of his life, Meursault has achieved a reflective grasp of the life he has lived, and has found that it was good. The sensually given is subject to reflective appraisal, and the previously implicit ethics of quantity begins to acquire an appreciation of experiential qualities that only conscious attention can bring.
Works Cited
Camus, A. The Stranger. Vintage Books, 1954.