Quotes from the Stranger by Albert Camus

A man who speaks more how hot it was the day of his mother’s funeral, than about how the death of his mother has effected him. A man who shows minimal emotion after what I would consider to be life altering events, the death of a mother and the act of murder. Instead of saying he was devastated about his mothers passing, or that he wishes he was with her during her last moments, he speaks very little about the emotional impact of a huge loss. On August 28th of this year, my grandfather passed away. He was 94 years old and died peacefully in his sleep at his home in the Dominican Republic.

Three weeks later, on September 16, his wife and partner for 60 years, my grandmother, passed under similar conditions. While I cannot say for certainty, I believe she died of heartbreak. She was never the same after losing her partner, her best friend and the love of her life. My family and I were informed via telephone the day after their passing because their rural community of San Cristobal is frequently without phone service. I remember both phone calls rather vividly, as my rather had placed both on speaker phone.

I remember the heartbreak that I felt, the devastation, the loneliness, but I do not remember anyone asking what date and time either of them passed. Instead, we all cried together and embraced each other. Particularly in the loss of my grandmother, I realize how death can impact a person’s soul. My grandmother was once a lively, upbeat woman. However, after his passing, through the entire funeral and the few days I spent with her after, I never saw her smile again. Her happiness was taken from her, and she could no longer go back to the person she was before.

While her case is extreme, I do believe the loss she felt is a sentiment that others who have lost a loved one can relate to. Mersault, on the other hand, is an exception to this rule. The day after his mother’s funeral he went swimming and spent the day flirting with a former co-worker. He kept living his life, without one tear shed, as if the loss of the woman that had brought him into this world had not occurred. While I believe that everyone is entitled to grieve in their own manner, Mersault’s actions did not reflect those of a man that was grieving a loss.

Instead, Mersault seemed almost inconvenienced by her passing because of the long travel to his mother’s home as well as the long, hot walk he had to endure behind the Hearst that took his mother to her final resting spot. His actions showed Mersault to be a self-absorbed man. His mother’s funeral was a venue for him to express how tired he was and how hot he was, not to discuss what kind of person his mother was and how she had helped him throughout his life. It was Mersault’s world and everyone else was just living in it. I would rather not have upset him, but I couldn’t see any reason to change my life. Looking back on it, I wasn’t unhappy. When I was a student, I had lots of ambitions like that. But when I had to give up my studies I learned very quickly that none of it really mattered. ” Part 1, Chapter 5, pg. 41 This is the first time in the story that I felt a sense of pity towards Mersault. I pity any man who finds himself without ambition, without dreams, without hope of a better, more positive future. I quickly realized that Mersault was a man who had no aspirations.

Mersault plainly expresses his indifference in progressing his status in life when his boss offers him a promotion, “Then he asked me if I wasn’t interest in a change of life. I said that people never change their lives, that in any case one life was as good as another and that I wasn’t dissatisfied with mine here at all. ” (41) He was adamant in believing that this was the life he had been given and that he could do nothing to change it, as if it were a sentence that had been bestowed upon him. I find this belief hard to accept as fact, as I was always taught that I could be whatever I wanted to be.

I remember being a child and dreaming of being a ballerina one day and being a pop star the next. In my world, the sky was the limit and I was taught that with hard work and determination I could become anything in the world. From what Mersault has said, he too had a sense of drive and want as a student, I wonder at what point things changed for him and he became so cynical. Was it the fact that he had to leave school to take care of his mother that changed his view as a sort of defense mechanism? I know if I was forced to leave school to care for one of my parents, I would be extremely disappointed to leave.

However, if I never again wanted anything in the first place , I would never subject myself to this sort of disappointment again. Mersault, by being complacent and content in his social status, puts himself in a position where he has nothing to lose, where nothing or no one can let him down. I am not sure if this was a conscious decision, or if it happened naturally as a result of his life change from student to working man and caretaker. But, I am adamant about the fact that it was a change that happened later on in his life, and not a feeling he’s felt since infancy.

Maybe because of my own experience and naivete, I choose to believe that we live in a world where children are born with imaginations and dreams and these feelings are either re-enforced or suppressed, depending on our environments. Regarding ambition and the American public, President Barack Obama has said, “We need to steer clear of this poverty of ambition, where people want to drive fancy cars and wear nice clothes and live in nice apartments but don’t want to work hard to accomplish these things. Everyone should try to realize their full potential. ” After reading the story of Mersault, I found myself remembering what Obama had said.

In Mersault’s cause the ‘poverty of ambition’ was not his desire for material possessions, it was that he did not desire for anything at all. This indifference for progress, I feel prevented Mersault from realizing his potential and truly getting to know himself as a person. “I didn’t feel much remorse for what I’d done. But I was surprised by how relentless he was. I would have liked to have tried explaining to him cordially, almost affectionately, that I had never been able to truly feel remorse for anything. ” Part Two, Chapter Four, Page 100. Mersault’s lack of regret for the murder he had committed, naturally upset he juror as he tried Mersault for his crime. I say ‘naturally’ because murder is a serious, frightening action that typically has an effect on not only the criminal and the victim, but also the entire community. As Kathleen Norris recounts the murder of a young man named Kevin in her book ‘The Cloister Walk’, she explains the effect that murder has on an entire community. “Here, we still know that murder is a momentous thing. We have no way to escape it; the man who finds the body, the policeman investigating the crime, the priest who prepares the eulogy are not faceless strangers but neighbors, people you know. Here, you can still feel what the death of one person does to the world. It’s a bitter luxury, but its all ours. ” (359-360) When Mersault express he did not feel remorse for taking another human life, he not only shows what little value he places on the person’s life he took, but also for human life in general. He did not care that he took someone’s brother, someones neighbor, someone’s husband or boyfriend, and that the death of this person hurt those around him.

In Mersault’s opinion, death was just apart of life and “it doesn’t much matter whether you die at thirty or at seventy, since in either case other men and women will naturally go on living-and for thousands of years. ” (114) While it is true that the world does not stop because one person dies, it is not as basic as Mersault wishes to put it. People may continue living, but the death of someone will effect others, as Norris explained. For example, the people of the Beach town might fear walking around the beach because they believe conditions are unsafe after the murder.

These people may have not known Mersault or the “Arab” personally, but their lives have been effected, even in the simplest way. Mersault’s unfaltering honesty about how he felt about the murder, hindered his case a great deal. After being given countless chances to admit he was sorry and to express remorse, Mersault did not waver and show compassion or repent for what he had done. In a sense, it would have been more helpful to lie about his feelings in order to help his case, but he did not care enough to do so.

While the prosecutor, the judge and even his own lawyer found his actions and thoughts contradictory to human nature, Mersault did not fully grasp how eccentric and odd his thoughts were. Because those who tried his case could not understand Mersault’s demeanor, they argued the case as if he was a spectator. Mersault explains, “My fate was being decided without anyone so much as asking my opinion. ” (98) Knowing this, Mersault did little to speak up and have a say in his fate. This instance shows me that Mersault’s diminished value of human life applied to his own as well.

Mersault did not value his life enough to stand up for himself and ultimately rejoiced at the fact that he was being sentenced to death. The final words Mersault leaves us with are, “I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with crises of hate. ” (123) Once again, Mersault’s feelings are not what one would expect. I know if one day I were unfortunate enough to be sentenced to death I would be terribly afraid. Instead, Mersault embraced his sentence seeing it as the inevitable end to a life that he didn’t place much value on in the first place.