The Stranger Transitions – Camus’ Philosophy of the Absurd
Vicky L. Oldham, October 12, 2022
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Albert Camus’ The Stranger tells a story that is especially relevant to the quest for meaning in today’s world. Contemporary society seems especially vulnerable to stagnation by lethargy as it struggles to find direction. Identity crises resulting from intermingling cultures and ideologies, popular media influences, and global challenges caused by pandemics and the effects of climate change have taken their toll. Technology's impact on daily life conspires to confuse, distract, and disorient. As people abandon the traditional certainty of family ties and religious faith, they wildly swing from questioning everything to concluding nothing. The lesson that it is up to the individual to create meaning and purpose in an absurd world is what The Stranger’s message intended. Through a first-person account by the novel’s protagonist, Meursault, the reader experiences the relationships and events that cause his philosophical outlook to shift from self-assured apathy to troubled self-reflection to a crescendo of understanding when he realizes his ultimate path to freedom.
Pictured Above: Albert Camus, winner of Nobel Prize in literature (known for his Humphrey Bogart-like good looks). Source: Wikimedia Commons. In the public domain.
Characters as Extended Metaphors
Meursault reacts indifferently to people and events because he cannot feel or express emotion. The Strangerbegins with the arresting introduction: “Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday; I’m not sure.” Camus immediately sets the tone for Meursault’s demeanor; his marked detachment is underscored by his lukewarm response to his mother's death. He experiences no grief and, at the same time, refuses to feign sadness at her funeral.
At first, Meursault’s social interactions in The Stranger seem limited to peripheral characters and superficial connections. However, the expression of each character in terms of an extended metaphor helps us understand they serve a greater purpose. Meursault’s conversations with friends and acquaintances reveal sharp contrasts with his personality or emphasize his deficiencies. Supporting characters, recurring motifs, and their symbolic meanings include:
· Marie Cardona, Meursault’s new girlfriend, represents the love of life and sexuality.
· Meursault’s mother highlights society’s hypocrisy and the consequences of unfair judgment.
· The mortuary keeper encourages Meursault to disregard traditional behavior at Meursault's mother's funeral, representing unforeseen peril.
· Thomas Perez, an older man in love with Meursault's deceased mother, contrasts with Meursault’s indifference.
· Salamano and his diseased dog represent decline and aging and that the ultimate fate of people is no different than that of animals.
· Celeste, the café owner, represents loyalty and the comforts of habit.
· Raymond, Meursault’s neighbor, a known pimp is a metaphor for violence, chaos, and destruction; he motivates Meursault to amoral behavior and, later, violent action. His character represents the consequences of moral choice.
· The sun, heat, weather, and the sea symbolize forces beyond human control, emphasizing the world's indifference.
· The prosecutor represents the voice of the absurd society.
· The magistrate represents a society threatened by alternative beliefs.
· The robotic woman represents the irrationality of compulsive behavior and routine. Her presence in the narrative mirrors the irrationality demonstrated by Meursault’s indifference and detachment from others (notably because she gains Meursault’s attention due to her oddity).
Meursault’s inability to feel emotion is so ingrained that it extends to how he regards his new romantic interest, Marie. Although Meursault finds her intensely physically attractive, he cannot love her back and honestly tells her, saying, “…she asked me if I loved her. I said that sort of question had no meaning” (Camus, 1942, p. 29). Meursault’s inability to fall in love with Marie, an exuberant young woman with a passion for life, powerfully frames the incoherence of his detachment. However, his introspection regarding the "question that has no meaning” foreshadows his eventual philosophical transition.
Meursault’s perfunctory interaction with the mortuary keeper at his mother’s funeral later resurfaces to haunt him. He listens intently to his neighbor Salamano who anguishes after losing his old diseased dog, and almost seems to sympathize but thinks no more of him after their conversation. Each time some shred of emotional connection is anticipated in Meursault, he proves his incapacity to respond with genuine feeling.
The reader of The Stranger may believe that Meursault’s straightforward response to everything is, at least, honest; then, he just as quickly engages in amoral behavior. He agrees, without much prompting, to help his unsavory neighbor, Raymond. Known as a procurer (a pimp), Raymond is in trouble with the law for physically abusing an Arab girl. He asks Meursault to write a letter falsely witnessing on his behalf, and Meursault nonchalantly complies. It is through Meursault’s relationship with Raymond that a chain of events leads to Meursault’s downfall and execution by guillotine.
We learn that, as a young man, Meursault once experienced feelings of ambition only to lose his sense of optimism later. We never know why but attempting to analyze Meursault’s psychological condition would miss the point Camus intends. Just as his social circle helps to explain his attributes through metaphorical expression, Meursault is a personality designed to reflect the absurd nature of existence through a narrative detailing its evidence by a chain of events. His lack of emotion and connection to others underscores his alienation, representing isolation from meaning and purpose in life.
Existentialism to the Realm of the Absurd
At this point, it is helpful to understand the intentions of the author of The Stranger, Albert Camus. During Camus’ lifetime, Western philosophers like Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir expanded on existentialist philosophy, establishing it as a mode of thought asserting no predetermined meaning to life. Existentialism contradicted the beliefs framed by religions and traditional institutions dominant in people’s lives. Contrary to the philosophers of ancient Greece who believed that “essence,” a quality that defines human beings, precedes “existence,” Sartre believed the opposite: that “existence precedes essence,” or at first, we simply exist. Only then are we free to choose and define our essence or purpose. While existentialism must have seemed revolutionary to most people in the mid-20th century, Camus further abstracted its concepts. He contended that all existence lies in the realm of the absurd; by recognizing there can be no ultimate understanding of life's meaning and that the truth of reality is unknowable, it is then possible to choose to live life to its fullest. Camus “…implored people to accept life’s lack of meaning and rebel by rejoicing in what life does offer” (Lowne & Lohnes, 2020, para. 5). Only then are human beings free to define themselves and create their own destiny. Absurdism is sometimes mistaken for nihilism, a philosophy that concludes there is no purpose, nothing matters, and the search for meaning is essentially futile; however, it is the opposite of nihilism because it offers a solution. Camus believed that once the inescapable realization that life, no matter how lived, ends in death for all, one is free to choose their unique path.
The Outsider
The title of Camus’ work, The Stranger, was initially written in French as “L’Etranger” and means “the foreigner" or the "outsider." Besides representing the theme of isolation, the story also highlights the injustice of colonialism in French-occupied Algiers, evidenced by the unprovoked, senseless murder of an Arab man by a Parisian (Meursault). Meursault is both an outsider as it relates to the French presence in Algiers and a stranger to society at large; he is both isolated and isolating, a deliberate effect intended by Camus. Only during his trial for murder does Meursault, who regarded everyone else as outsiders, begin to comprehend that he is actually the outsider—the stranger.
The Absurd Man
Meursault’s detachment from people and events continues through the first part of the novel, in a first-person account that chronicles situations occurring in less than a month. He appears to function at a basic sensory level, suggesting the mind of an animal. Like a creature that lives by instinct, he acutely observes sights and sounds, the sun's warmth, water flow, ambient scents, the rise and fall of the terrain, and the most subtle nuances of the surrounding environment. He lives from moment to moment, incapable of connecting to others or reflecting on his actions' consequences. Since Meursault cannot feel emotion or meaningfully connect with others, he fails to imagine the future and, by his actions, reflects the human element of the absurd.
The Absurd Society
Meursault’s downfall occurs during his relationship with Raymond. He fails to resist Raymond's sphere of influence and inexplicably murders Raymond’s enemy, an Arab man who is the brother of Raymond’s abused girlfriend. After almost a year in prison, Meursault goes on trial. The same cast of characters from Meursault's social circle before his arrest return to the courtroom scene as witnesses.
At the start of his murder trial, Meursault denies the seriousness of his predicament; he even imagines the evaluations underway in the courtroom referring to someone else. Lulled by a sense of hope, denial of his criminality, and expectation of a last-minute reprieve, he begins to connect past and future incidents to his present situation. Events have forced Meursault into self-introspection, causing his philosophical view to shift when he realizes the people around him are interpreting his life in his place, ready to judge him based on subjective assertions rather than facts. His emotional blindness and failure to reflect on his life have cost him his freedom. All of Meursault’s friends take the stand and answer questions truthfully, but the prosecutor twists their answers to support a predetermined outcome. The prosecutor concludes, "I accuse the prisoner of behaving at his mother's funeral in a way that showed he was already a criminal at heart” (Camus, 1942, p. 81). The jury is unanimously convinced that Meursault, a man who showed no emotion at the death of his mother and attended a comedy film with his girlfriend Marie the day after her funeral, is not just guilty of murder. He is also dangerous to society due to his apparent lack of feelings or remorse. Meursault is sentenced to death for multiple crimes (murder and the apparently unconscionable disregard for his mother). At this point, the absurd man has been judged by the absurd society; both are incapable of discerning the truth. The courtroom scene represents the world, influenced by subjective beliefs and idealistic yet irrational aspirations, further emphasizing Camus’ philosophy of the absurd.
The Absurd Life
Meursault, the absurd man, eventually embraces a philosophical view that comes to terms with the absurdity of existence. At first, however, he questions how things could have been different. Then he thinks of Marie and supposes she has forgotten about him, adding, “…there was no link between us, nothing to remind us of each other. Supposing she were dead, her memory would mean nothing; I couldn't feel an interest in a dead girl. This seemed to me quite normal; just as I realized people would soon forget me once I was dead” (Camus, 1942, p. 96). Meursault stops obsessing about a "loophole" or escape from his predicament. Then he is visited by a chaplain whose visits he previously refused three times.
The chaplain struggles to convince Meursault that errors in his thinking and lack of faith in God are at the root of his despair. He pleads with Meursault to repent of his sins so that he can at least ensure his future path to God and forgiveness. But Meursault confronts the chaplain with what he perceives to be irrational—that it is ridiculous to believe adopting another person’s worldview changes the eventual outcome. Meursault comprehends that it is the chaplain who despairs based on a viewpoint that ultimately fails to satisfy him too. Meursault finally explodes at the chaplain and afterward fumes: “He seemed so cocksure, you see. And yet none of his certainties was worth one strand of a woman's hair. Living as he did, like a corpse, he couldn't even be sure of being alive" (Camus, 1942, p. 102). Meursault achieves clarity and peace in the knowledge that every human being will eventually die no matter how they have lived and that the same finality impacts us all. He now embraces his fate without fear; moreover, he approaches death with a sense of resolve as he views his mother’s life through a different lens:
With death so near, Mother must have felt like someone on the brink of freedom, ready to start life all over again. No one, no one in the world had any right to weep for her. 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. (p. 105).
Finally, Meursault’s epiphany arose, not through religious belief or faith, but by recognizing death's inescapable, dispassionate leveling force. For the first time, he understands the truth: that everyone dies, no matter how they have lived. Only by a rebellious confrontation with the inevitability of death can he acknowledge the absurdity of existence and become truly free.
Freedom from the Absurd
By the end of The Stranger, Meursault paradoxically comes to appreciate his life through the certainty of his death. The philosophy of absurdism asserts there is no meaning to be found except by one’s recognition and acceptance of a truth that makes conscious choice possible. Camus argues “that the basic scene of human existence is its confrontation with this mute irrationality” (IEP, n.d., 2f). Even nature and its apparent laws, while lending themselves to description, are, Camus believes, incapable of conveying value and meaning about the more profound questions of existence.
Camus' concept of absurdism is also explained by what Camus did not believe. Although “absurdism” is currently included among existentialist themes, Camus vehemently opposed being labeled an existentialist. He distanced himself from Jean-Paul Sartre due to Sartre’s support of Marxism and his condoning of violence as a means to revolution. According to Aronson (2004), “Sartre embraced violence as a path to change and Camus sharply opposed it” (para. 3). Camus disdained violence and believed it could only result in the “…establishment of a new government,” but one that “would become an authoritarian dictatorship” (The Living Philosophy, 2021, 00:05:58). As a leading figure in philosophical thought who also cared about social justice, Camus strongly distinguished himself from Sartre and other contemporary thinkers.
Camus best expresses the philosophy of the absurd as “…the space which opens up between, on the one hand, man’s need for intelligibility and, on the other hand, ‘the unreasonable silence of the world’” (IEP, n.d., 2f). Camus wanted to know “…how to behave when one does not believe in God or reason” (IEP, n.d., 2f, as cited in Sherman, 2009). Once the absurdity of existence is comprehended, humankind can “…realize that it has to respond to the question of where to find meaning and how to construct a life worth living” (Mayer, 2021, p. 5). In writing The Stranger, Camus ingeniously devised an allegory to express the philosophy of the absurd by having the reader experience its effects firsthand through the day-to-day aimlessness of the emotionless Meursault. Following The Stranger, Camus published The Myth of Sisyphus, further explaining the significance of absurdism (Britannica Editors, 2022). Prematurely ending Camus’ lifelong philosophical exploration, as if to underscore the truth of absurdist philosophy through an absurd conclusion, the Nobel-prize-winning author perished in a car accident. He was just forty-six.
References
Aronson, R. (2004). Camus and Sartre: The Story of a friendship and the quarrel that ended it (Introduction).University of Chicago Press/Google Books. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Camus_and_Sartre/A1UGp2rqamsC?hl=en
Britannica Editors (2022, September 15). The myth of Sisyphus. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Myth-of-Sisyphus
Camus, A. (1942, May 19). L'Etranger (the stranger) [eBook]. Alfred A. Knopf; Amazon Kindle Edition. https://www.amazon.com/Stranger-Vintage-International-ALBERT-CAMUS-ebook/dp/B09RMH9RMV/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1B3LBF0D0WAV1&keywords=The+Stranger&qid=1664379982&qu=eyJxc2MiOiIzLjYyIiwicXNhIjoiMi40NCIsInFzcCI6IjIuNDIifQ%3D%3D&s=digital-text&sprefix=the+stranger%2Cdigital-text%2C139&sr=1-1
IEP (n.d.). Existentialism. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://iep.utm.edu/existent/#SH2f
Lowne, C., & Lohnes, K. (2020, May 5). The stranger. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Stranger-novel-by-Camus
Mayer C. H. (2021). Albert Camus - A psychobiographical approach in times of Covid-19. Frontiers in psychology, 12,644579. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.644579
Sherman, D. (2009). Camus. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
The Living Philosophy (2021, May 23). Albert Camus vs. Jean-Paul Sartre [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/sxmIZnJTjDU
Interesting related article about particle physics and how it relates to Camus' idea:
Sutter, P.M. (2022, November 9). How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Uncertainty. https://nautil.us/how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love-uncertainty-245816/
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