Albert Camus has never liked being considered a philosopher but he was granted such a status for his philosophical writing. He has used his writing flare to explore the characteristics of absurdity and presented us with his idea of life. One could go as far as considering him as existentialist because of his expression that life as a whole had no inherent meaning but at the same time, he didn’t believe that one has to have a good amount of personal meaning attached to life. He urged for humans to accept that life has no real meaning and one would always be ‘indifferent’ from others.
This indifference is what makes us capable of being ‘rebellious’ or ‘revolt’ against the norm. One has every right to rebel against what life has to offer. Absurdism becomes a concept of conflict between individuals looking for meaning and never finding any. Existence has qualities that are physical in nature. According to absurdism, God as a divine entity may or may not exist but for to fully know that something is real or not is through their senses, which means, something is real if it can be observed. Given the different religions, we humans tend to take a leap of faith and place our trust within the divine being and it is a lifelong process and what absurdity does is questions the rationality behind it.
Our faith is what pushes us to pursue the unknown, to do good things, to shape us as humans and to always move forward with a feeling of fulfillment. It provides us meaning and hope. Now the real question is, as we dissect faith from Camus’s point of view, is there any rationality to such a faith or is it fruitless? In a ‘Myth of Sisyphus’, Camus (1955) states, “man stands face to face with the irrational. He feels within him his longing for happiness and for reason. The absurd is born of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world” (Camus, 1955, p. 28).
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According to this, an individual is constantly searching for any form of tangible meaning but the world around him provides the person with a bitter form of silence that makes him question whether or not his existence has any meaning. Camus denies that there is any form of scientific, metaphysical, logical and substantial way to find an answer to the meaning of life. The world around us fails to fulfill our demands in life because the world is indifferent to us. Moreover, absurdity is born out of a constant conflict, and this conflict is not just between human experience and expectations but it is a conflict that takes place within ourselves.
So, the three kind of options have been suggested by Camus and Soren Kierkegaard, who has promoted existentialism. Humans have three ways to deal with life. First of all is suicide, which was the very subject of ‘The myth of Sisyphus’. Second is taking a leap of faith, which most of us already do and last one is to face absurdity as it is. Both suicide and leap of faith can be the ways to understand life. Camus wants us to focus on the present and live within the physical realm that we are fully aware of. Hence, it is only rational for one to act according to their experiences and it could differ. We see this aspect being repeatedly embedded and told through the story of Meursault in The Stranger by Camus.
Camus emphasis through his character Meursault and Sisyphus that one should be able to live with what they know of and that is more than enough. Camus states, “I do not want to found anything on the incomprehensible. I want to know whether I can live with what I know and with that alone” (Camus, 1955, p. 5). As opposed to the religious belief that there if an afterlife and one must please the Almighty God in order to go to heaven that humans tend to waste away their lives and suffer pointlessly. One cannot even be sure of the hereafter and yet they choose to put their present lives on stake for a better afterlife.
Camus believes that hope itself is a tragic sin and through Meursault’s character, readers realize that hope has been an illusion that enslaved from being able to focus on the prison. When he was prisoned for murdering the Arab boy, his friends gave him the hope that he would be released and cleared from all the charges. This hope kept him very occupied that he stopped living in the present and imagined a future. Meursault spent his days in prison not making the most of his time but rather, living a lie. This hope gives him the idea of being a part of the people that are present while executions take place. He plans to visit the executions quite often and be a spectator in the future.
For the first time, he experiences ‘hope’ and that is also short lived once he realizes the truth of life while his death is around the corner. He realizes that hope is pointless and develops a consciousness that accepts death as inevitable. For Meursault life becomes a phase that has present, past and future and a person can die in either of the these phases and the truth is, it won’t matter when he dies. He feels that the only reason there is even a difference between dying from guillotine and a natural death is because it is perceived to make a difference. The meanings that we attach and the sense we make out of things is what actually makes a difference for us but in reality, this is absolutely pointless for Meursault.
Hope had thoroughly tortured him time and again and it is this hope that had made him capable of taking a leap of faith for once. He spent his final days pondering upon how he would spend his next twenty years when he could have used that time on the very present, so by the end of the day, he was at a loss. Meursault becomes a tragic hero at this point due to his indifference towards the world and Camus believes that the society is threatened by the indifferent people, therefore, the society decides to kill such humans.
Most of us can relate to this ideology that hope can be tormenting as it makes us anxious, it drives us out of our comfort zone and instead of understanding and solving the severity of our current situation, we hope for a better future and start living in the future. However, hope has a very positive outcome as well but for Camus, it is what holds us back. Since there is no rational meaning or order in life, Meursault’s very existence also becomes meaningless. If he dies, he dies, it is the end and an escape for him from this vicious life. What takes us forever to understand or to accept, Camus depicts through Meursault’s character that one accepts death when he is closer to it. There is no certainty to the purpose of one’s life but Camus argues that there is one absolute certainty, which is death. Since all human beings die eventually, this makes everyone’s life meaningless and that’s the whole idea of absurdity according to Camus.
Absurdity further highlights that the universe is trying to create fake orders and irrational beliefs to mold our lives into a substantial form. We live in a hypocrisy because we tend to fabricate everything, including our feelings and emotions just for the sake of expression instead of accepting the fact that if something is happening, it is happening without any cause and effect. That there is no chronological order and no rational reasoning behind it. Humans want to squeeze meaning out of everything for their understanding, even when there isn’t any connection in a physical form that can be felt by our senses. Hence, Camus suggests that the universe feels threatened and imposes rationality because it just couldn’t accept the fact that universe itself is ‘irrational’.
Meursault character has been very distant and apathetic throughout the novel. He took actions without any ‘logical’ reasoning. He was living in the moment every day and engaging in actions not for some emotional outcome but rather a physical pleasure or no reason at all. The novel started off with the lines, “Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don’t know.” From the very start we see Meursault incapable of showing any emotional response towards the death of his mother, who lived in an old age home because he couldn’t afford her financially. As readers, we have the ability to judge and label the characters so most of us conclude that either he wasn’t in good terms with his mother or that he was an insensitive person.
We could always judge him in the shades of black and white, good or bad but never see him as someone who was ‘indifferent’ because we don’t have any tolerance for those that are different. Meursault feels the same way about the world around him. The universe is indifferent towards him and so he is indifferent towards everything. He wasn’t happy that his mother, nor was he sad. The absurd part is, if he had been happy that his mother was dead, everyone would assume him to be an immoral person. He would be labelled as a ‘monster’ but he wasn’t happy.
Similarly, he wasn’t sad either. As he showed no form of grief, he was judged to be insensitive, cold hearted person. Either way, he was tormented for not feeling what is expected from us as a norm within this society. As it is a personal account, Meursault is seen describing his feeling of discomfort in terms of the heat that he felt, or how restless and tired he became. He provided the readers with a detailed picture of his surrounding, the weather, and the places he visited and never expressed any emotional aspect.
“MOTHER died today. Or, maybe, yesterday; I can’t be sure. The telegram from the Home says: YOUR MOTHER PASSED AWAY. FUNERAL TOMORROW. DEEP SYMPATHY. Which leaves the matter doubtful; it could have been yesterday.”
For a fact, when he had to take the day off from work and travel back to attend his mother’s funeral, he told his boss several times that, ‘ it wasn’t my fault that Maman is dead’. The narration starts in a very matter-of-fact-manner and Meursault seems more concerned to figure out when she had passed away, than to fully focus on the fact that she is dead. Any sensible person would breakdown and remain in grief but Meursault is so detached from all forms of emotions that he starts to address his mother as ‘dead body’.
‘Then I can spend the night there, keeping the usual vigil beside the body, and be back here by tomorrow evening.’ (The Stranger, pg 1). It is not that he isn’t aware of how to act to situation but rather, he choose to act in a certain manner out of his own will. Meursault realizes that he has the freedom to be who he is and he exercises it to his fullest and with his utmost honesty. At the same time, he has a manipulative side too, which is completely harmless. For example, he realized that he shouldn’t have said sorry when he was taking days off to visit home for his mother’s funeral. At the same time, he was aware of the fact that his boss should feel sorry for him and be sympathetic towards him, granting him few days off that he could use to his advantage to rest and sleep.
‘Afterwards it struck me I needn’t have said that. I had no reason to excuse myself; it was up to him to express his sympathy and so forth. Probably he will do so the day after tomorrow, when he sees me in black.’ (The Stranger, pg 1)
There was a point that I felt Meursault could be in denial when he expressed that he felt she wasn’t dead and the funeral would help him absorb that. At this point, readers would feel pity for him. Celeste empathized with him at the restaurant but he had no reaction to her words. He was a man who observed very deeply and mentioned the tiniest detail of everything that he saw but he had not a single word to express how he truly felt regarding his mother.
“There’s no one like a mother.”
‘For the present, it’s almost as if Mother weren’t really dead. The funeral will bring it home to me, put an official seal on it, so to speak. …’
Most readers would assume that Meursault is suffering from psychological issue and apply some psycho-analytical approach to his condition for not being able to express or react with sensitivity. The possibility of him being in denial is ruled off when he goes to attend the funeral and denies seeing his mother’s face one last time. Rather, he enjoys a good smoke and drinks coffee and tells the reader how the room was filled with people that empathized with him and he had nothing to say in return because he genuinely felt nothing and he couldn’t simply fake it.
The old man told him, “Things have to go with a rush, like. You’ve hardly time to get used to the idea that someone’s dead, before you’re hauled off to the funeral,” to which his wife made him stop and the old man apologized but Meursault, being his indifferent self, found this very insightful as he narrated, “As a matter of fact, I found it rather interesting, what he’d been telling me; I hadn’t thought of that before.” From this interaction, we see the people around him being expressive and empathizing with him, which is a very rational act to do and this holds a meaningful stance but Meursault is a symbol of indifference. He embodies no rational or sees any meaning in the words that people throw at him.
The most absurd thing is for people is to see him so comfortable sipping coffee and feeling no remorse whatsoever, whereas, for him, what’s absurd is how people held this act immorally against him during his trial. He was judged on the basis of something as simple as being able to enjoy coffee, instead of crying. People questioned his sanity. People questioned why he didn’t cry because crying has become such a prestigious and rational norm that if one doesn’t engage in such an activity, he/she is held questionable for that. The absurdity is people would rather accept those who can fake tears and never accept those that genuinely don’t feel the need to cry.
Meursault narrated his experience during the vigil where he focused on how everyone cried and said meaningful things about his mother. He observed their expressions, their appearances and realized that he was wrong to think that none of them were genuinely there for his dead mother. He was under the impression that half of the people didn’t even know his mother like he did, but then, he realized that his mother had friends and they knew her well. Meursault wasn’t even sure of her age but just to hide that, he pretended to know just for the sake of it. His observation skill made him very much attentive and if he wasn’t speaking, he was definitely thinking and he could completely understand what the others felt so he wasn’t a psychological disturbed person either.
“They were so much absorbed in their thoughts that they didn’t know what they were up to. I even had an impression that the dead body in their midst meant nothing at all to them. But now I suspect that I was mistaken about this.” (The Stranger, pg 9)
After the funeral and the walk back to home, all he could think of was going to bed and how he had been tired. This physical aspect had been one of the most important element throughout the book. Meursault notices that Mr. Thomas Perez who has been romantically involved with his mother, is the most upset due to her death. He is an old man who cannot keep up with the funeral due to his emotional and physical health and he keeps fainting and walking slowly in the heat when they are walking to the graveyard. Most readers would believe that Perez’s truly loved her and he was there for her despite his own condition but for Meursault, there is no rationality to his presence when he wasn’t even well enough.
Camus believes that on should always focus on the physical realm that is within the present and not betray it by thinking of the future which has never been felt by the senses (1955). Camus delves into the character’s ability to focus more on the physical world around him than his inner emotional or outer social skills. Camus’s description of how the sun was beaming brightly, the heat of the sun was causing more pain than the loss of his dead mother, how often he felt tired and slept, takes us readers far away from any meaningful order that Meursault’s life has to offer. Rather, his life is the most simple one that Meursault explains in simple words that he works, eats, sleeps, gets up next morning, goes to work, sees his friends, gets tired and sleep.
The cycle goes on and for Camus this is the absurdity of life. The sun is a symbol that controls his life and directs his life into different direction. One reason could be that Meursault gives it so much of importance within the story which is why he holds the sun responsible but then that would be an irony purposely put together by Camus. On the other hand, the sun is held responsible for no apparent reason and that only adds to the absurdity of the play. However, I believe that sun does have a significant role as it tends to show the same kind of indifference towards him, just like he does that towards the whole Universe and how in return, people around him do the same.
The language that Meursault uses is simple but the extensive details makes it rather boring but perhaps that is because there is no substantial or even dramatic expressions that Meursault has to offer as a character. He is that simple and yet the society decides to execute him. The protagonist’s changes his narrating styles to really showcase his own attitudes and behaviors. In terms of textuality, the words and sentences he uses are very precise and to the point when he is caught amidst emotional situations. He never fakes a reaction just to fit in or to please someone. He had always used his time to express how someone has looked, talked, and how he saw the world. He never mentioned how he felt because he never felt anything in particular. That doesn’t mean he is a robotic person, rather Camus presents absurdism and existentialism both at the same time in the form of Meursault. Camus has stated in his essay that the books he writes are not to preach but rather to highlight severe matters rather lightly and more comically and that’s how absurd life is.
So far, we have seen that through Absurdism, Camus has dealt with various characteristics such as freedom to express, truth and honesty even if it’s bitter, beauty and ugly of nature, the constant desire to fight and revolt against the norm, the intolerance and unacceptance of the society and reality being absolutely subjective, within his book The Stranger. He came up with the idea of this book to showcase what human tragedy is as it always exists and we tend to overlook it. Philip Thrody (1957) was of the view that Camus wanted to simply create a book out of human suffering and show the hypocrisy of the society in the name of religion and morality. As The Stranger was published before the Myth of Sisyphus, Camus did that to present the feeling of absurd and later explain in detail the whole philosophy behind it. For Camus, death is the only answer to everything. There should be no hope, desires and goals for future. Meaning should be understood as insignificant and pointless.
A man should only focus on himself, on the universe and most importantly, death. Fatalism and predestination comes into the picture and one questions if humans are capable of choosing their fate or there is no escaping your fate? Camus captures the truth very beautifully through Meursault’s character who states, “one and the same fate was bound to ‘choose’ not only me but thousands of millions of privileged people, that fate is only death” (The Stranger, line 152). The fate chose death for the Arab guy, for Meursault’s mother and now his fate was to die too and for Meursault the truth is, their existence or death wouldn’t make any difference. The very thought of why something happens or doesn’t makes a difference never occurs to Meursault.
Words like meaning, need, desire, purpose are all foreign to him. If he says something, he simply says it. If he does something, he simply does it. There is never a further soul searching as to why he said something or why he felt something. Similarly, he doesn’t ponder upon why people around him say what they say. He never tries to reason with them. In simple words, he has no expectations and doesn’t get disappointed either. Camus made such a character on purpose to encourage people without holding onto meanings that can change time to time. Meursault is never seen reflecting upon his life just to find a meaning or purpose of his existence. The character does develop and he does transcend from being hopeful to miserable to content as he accepts his faith and looks forward to death. However, there are no goals that he wants to achieve.
There are no disappointments that explains he is the way he is. There is no need for religion to shape him. Camus emphasizes that morality can be an innate aspect or it can be learned but it doesn’t always come from religious teachings. Rather, the society uses religion to their advantage and manipulates people just to control them through fear of God. Camus expects the readers to fully accept the world as the world of the absurd and see their light in the light of absurdity rather than a spiritual journey.
Jean Paul Sarte has appreciated Camus’s work and stated that one should always accept the novel as it is without any reason. He stated, “The stranger, a work detached from a life, unjustified and unjustifiable, sterile, momentary, already forsaken by its author, abandoned for other present things. And that is how we must accept it, as a brief communion between two … the author and the reader, beyond reason, in the realm of the absurd.” (1962). However, people would read it as it is. We, humans, are so used to finding meaning out of everything that we cannot be objective and we will find a theme from this book that will have a meaningful impact on us. The same way that people weren’t able to understand how or why Meursault shot that man due to the sizzling sun’s rays that reflected on the knife that the Arab was holding while attacking Raymond, Camus cannot understand why humans must associate meanings.
The second part of the book is based on his trial which is a parody on the religion, in my opinion. Camus shows that even though there is a moral man trying to remain moral, he will have to do something bad just to maintain his repute. The society has to impose their religious norms on those that don’t believe in them and one must always be ready to accept or else, their whole life is at stake. The most interesting plot twist is, Meursault let’s his guard down for once and he decides to help his friend out and he doesn’t even intend to harm anyone. The revolver that he had was for self-defense and his friend Raymond was being beaten up very badly but despite all of that, it was the sun once again tormenting him and the reflection caused him to shoot. The aim wasn’t on purpose and yet he shot someone who was hurting his friend. It could have been a brave act, had he accepted to lie and fake it that he did it out of self-defense but being the simple and honest man, he chose not to lie. He explained the situation as it is and blamed the sun’s rays for reflecting back and in all honesty admitted that it was a coincidence. Camus shows that being honest or not, one cannot escape his fate.
Through Meursault’s story, Camus is trying to prove his point that being moral will not bring you a good end or a bad end. That everything will happen in no coherent order and one can never make any sense out of life so one shouldn’t waste their time in assuming spiritual meanings because that’s absurd. Life as a whole is absurd. After the incident, Meursault confesses that he shot the Arab boy five times due to glint from the sizzling sun being reflected that disturbed him and he was imprisoned. Meursault’s lawyer and friends tried to convince him to lie to and fake a story that he only shot the Arab boy out of ‘self-defense’ and that lie would be able to save his life but Meursault didn’t lie. Now, the readers are fully aware that he doesn’t believe in God, he doesn’t follow any religion and he doesn’t lie either. He does things because he wants to and there’s no more complex details to his actions.
When his girlfriend had asked him if he loved her, he honestly said no he doesn’t and that it didn’t make a difference. It did hurt her feelings but he was being honest and it was his indifference that she was so attracted to him for. When she asked him if he would marry her, he said that he would if she wanted that but it didn’t really didn’t mean anything to him. He had been very intimate with her and she was in love with him. It was as if her love for him was unconditional and in response, he was honest in every possible sense. Similarly, he chose truth over lies and was held responsible even when it was a genuine mistake. He was asked to repent and seek forgiveness for his sins. The magistrate shoved a crucifix in his face and urged him to pray and cry for mercy but Meursault cannot focus on his words.
“As a matter of fact, I had great difficulty in following his remarks, as, for one thing, the office was so stiflingly hot and big flies were buzzing round and settling on my cheeks; also because he rather alarmed me. Of course, I realized it was absurd to feel like this, considering that, after all, it was I who was the criminal.” (The Stranger, pg 43)
He was rather occupied by the surrounding that he observed, the annoying buzzing sounds that the flies were making and how he felt suffocated and hot. Meursault finally uses the word ‘absurd’ within the book where he holds the attention of the readers that for him, this very point was the epitome of ‘absurdity’.
“I started to tell him that he was wrong in insisting on this; the point was of quite minor importance. But, before I could get the words out, he had drawn himself up to his full height and was asking me very earnestly if I believed in God. When I said, “No,” he plumped down into his chair indignantly. That was unthinkable, he said; all men believe in God, even those who reject Him. Of this he was absolutely sure; if ever he came to doubt it, his life would lose all meaning. “Do you wish,” he asked indignantly, “my life to have no meaning?” Really I couldn’t see how my wishes came into it, and I told him as much.” (The Stranger, pg 47.)
Meursault wasn’t afraid to speak what was on his mind and the Magistrate wasn’t pleased. He couldn’t accept or tolerate the difference among them and he was trying to impose faith on Meursault who could care less about it. He was called as ‘Mr. Antichrist’ because he openly accepted that he didn’t believe in God. His trail went on for a year and he was in false hope for getting out of the jail one day but once it was announced that he was going to be executed, he accepted his fate with open arms and that’s when he realized that death was the only answer to life. Meursault bravely faces absurdity in the face by accepting death and finds comfort in that thought. As he lets go of the illusionary hope, he becomes more liberated and faces ‘the indifferences of the world’. Throughout his narration, Meursault didn’t allow his sentiments to take over so he is more in control of himself. It has been stated that even though Meursault was pointed out as Mr. Anti-Christ, he actually represent a significant symbol that has two similarities with the Christ. Firstly, nobody accepted him and felt threatened by the Christ and similar was Meursault’s situation and both of them spoke of the truth. Secondly, both of them were executed out in the public, however, Meursault didn’t believe in God. Camus has been very successful in portraying a world where a man has the whole universe against him, even the very nature is against him.
We see Camus using pathetic fallacy to show us the kind of absurdity that life throws at Meursault and he only expression his state by observing the nature around it and narrating it the readers. His death would not seem fair to the readers as by now, we have all seen him as a tragic hero and feel pity towards him but he has mastered the art of acceptance. Meursault feels that he has triumphed over the society by accepting death with contentment because it is the end of his pointless life that never meant anything in the first place. He is indeed an outsider among all those people that would be out there hatefully cheering as he would be getting executed. His last thoughts were the first and the last time he had managed to be expressive in terms of emotions. He expressed utmost happiness, especially in a time like that which can only inspire the readers to stop for a minute and reflect on the absurdity of our lives.
“For the first time, the first, I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe. To feel it so like myself, indeed, so brotherly, made me realize that I’d been happy, and that I was happy still. For all to be accomplished, for me to feel less lonely, all that remained to hope was that on the day of my execution there should be a huge crowd of spectators and that they should greet me with howls of execration.” (The Stranger, pg 76.)
References
- Nagel, Thomas. “The Absurd.” The Journal of Philosophy, vol. 68, no. 20, 1971, pp. 716–727. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2024942.
- Camus, Albert, and Stuart Gilbert. The Stranger. New York: Vintage Books, 1954. Print.
- Gordon, Jeffrey. “Nagel or Camus on the Absurd?” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, vol. 45, no. 1, 1984, pp. 15–28. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2107324.
- Camus, A. (1965). The myth of Sisyphus, and other essays. London: H. Hamilton.
- Roskowski, Matthew. “Absurdity and Leap of Faith”. Journal of Student Research, pp. 15-21. https://minds.wisconsin.edu/bitstream/handle/1793/66395/RoskowskiMatthew.pdf?sequence=1
- SparkNotes Editors. “SparkNote on The Stranger.” SparkNotes.com. SparkNotes LLC. 2003. Web. 30 Jan. 2019.
- Sartre, Jean-Paul. “Camus’s The Outsider.” In Situations. New York: George Braziller, 1965.
- Thrody, Philip. Albert Camus, 1913-1960. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1961.
