exam essay part 2

In “The Stranger” by Albert Camus, I see the main character Meursault to be immoral. He is utterly emotionless to the events that are happening around him. He catches wind of his mother’s death and as her only child he does not feel any form of grief or sadness. Meursault does not feel self-conscious of how the other people at the funeral are bashing his name. After his mother’s death we learn that Meursault does not have anything of value nor does he hold any values. He is content with doing the same thing every day and is actually afraid of change when his supervisor offers to transfer him to Paris. The Paris promotion could serve as a turning point in his life but just like everything else he disregards it and does not establish a stance on how he feels about it. The lack of opinion urges me to sympathize more with him because it seems like he is missing out on life. Life is all about choices and the reasons why we make them, but Meursault refuses to make any choices. The one person who may hold any real significance to him is ignored. Meursault goes out on dates with a woman named Maria and her feelings grow like they naturally should. Maria say, “Hey do you love me?” and Meursault replies with “I don’t know.” He is incapable of describing her personality to the reader but he shows happiness when he describes her physical features. I feel sympathetic towards him because when a man uses a woman for her body and ignores her feelings that are frowned upon, but Meursault does not do that on purpose he truly cannot help it. He takes pride in describing her beautiful tan skin and luscious breast but he cannot make a single comment on how he feels about her personality.

            Meursault is imprisoned but he does not suffer from the worries you would expect him to, for example never seeing Maria again, losing his job, and surrendering his life and reputation. He only thinks about his cigarettes, sex, and nature itself. The pitiful aspect is that he stops caring about those things and everything else in general and fines a home or a sense of comfortableness in a prison cell.