By Albert Camus
The stranger is a book about the absurd. Contrasting to Nihilism and Existentialism, Absurdism is the acceptance of the utter meaningless of life without taking the motivation to derive your own meaning. The absurd is the idea that the human drive to find individual meaning contradicts the indifferent universe.
The book centres around Meursault, an apathetic, indifferent young man whose mother just died. Meursault displays his apathy, lack of ambition, and belief in the indifference of life in several ways throughout the novella on various occasions.
- One one occasion he engages in conversation where there is no difference in tone when making small talk about the weather and conversing about the death of his mother
- Mersault was keen on Marie while working together and thought she liked him as well, but took no action
- His take on the character within a comedy was that they looked languid and exhausted (where this is how one would act when they are beat down by the indifference of life)
- “Mother now was buried […]. Really, nothing in my life had changed”. He really just does not care
- When Marie asked him if he loved her, he thought that the question had no meaning really
- Mersault seems to care less about individual character and more about who makes themselves amiable to him
- On multiple occasions stating that he is very indifferent to major decisions in his life
- Going to jail for murder
- Going to Paris for work
- When contemplating whether or not to shoot the Arab, he decided that whether he fired or not, it would come to the same thing
- “Familiar paths traced in the dusk of summer evenings may lead as well to prisons as to innocent, untroubled sleep”. I think here, he once again touches on how in the grand plan of the universe, all roads lead to the same result, some sooner than others
- “I’ve always been far too much absorbed in the present moment”, this is actually kind of a great quality to an extend, where one needs to still be somewhat occupied by the future, otherwise they may make hedonistic decisions. Here, Mersault uses this claim to defend why he is so indifferent about his murder and doesn’t really regret his actions
In addition to all of this, I believe that Camus displays best the absurdity of life through Mersaults relationship with Marie. Mersault seems to be attracted to Marie, but seems fairly indifferent about their relationship. He often struggles to care enough about her to fulfill her in their relationship. He is very honest about his lack of emotional depth and agrees to marry her only because it was her wish to get married and because he is indifferent either way. Ultimately, in a similar manner to his mother taking a “fiancé” shortly before her death, so does Mersault before his execution, displaying that the pursuit of human happiness in the context of the indifference of the universe is futile.
However, it isn’t until death, that Mersault “felt [his] heart shatter into bits” when he thought that the prison guards were coming to execute him but he realized that when “for the first time [he] laid [his] heart open to the benign indifference of the universe”, that he has been, and remains, happy, ultimately accepting the absurd.