Friday, August 31, 2012

Mersault Who?

Throughout the whole novel I tried to find what was already in front of me. I wasted thought on what was obvious and in effect what  I already knew. Nevertheless I refused to acknowledge it, even if it was screaming out to me. What is this thing I'm talking about you might be asking? It's about the main character of course.
Meursault: a detached human being from society as well as his emotions; lacks sensitivity or importance. 
Although being the narrator and main character, he barely displays any feelings or concern for anything. I kept on trying to figure him out, to get a sense of who he was on the inside but not once did I get anything more than what I stated above. My eyes pictured him more like a robot than a real person. At times I even compared him to a square, perfectly symmetric with no other purpose than doing things for a clear reason in an impeccable manner. Camus's words seemed more like a list of facts than an actual novel. 
The Stranger as a title know seems reasonable. To me he was a stranger  as I couldn't either relate or understand him. To society he is a stranger  by being so different and dissociated. To the people around him he is a stranger with a lack of interest in their affairs, feelings, or opinions. Finally, as crude as it sounds, he is a stranger to himself. 
This last statement however changed  in the last few chapters of the novel when Meursault's execution was near. I realized that the real Meurault was right before my eyes. Who is the real Meursault then?
Meursault: a detached human being from society as well as his emotions; lacks sensitivity or importance.  


He is nothing more and nothing less than that. Meursault lives for reasoning and logic, and everything he does and thinks revolves around it. To an extent, one might think that this is due to a lack of personality. In reality this describes and builds  his personality: different and straightforward. "... I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. So much like me..." (Part !!, Chapter 5)  This gentle indifference of the world is the absence of value each human life contains. They are nothing, and consequently what they do, think, or say means nothing as well. Experience is all Meursault lived for and under no subjectiveness or social influence. 

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