The Stranger - Essay Outline

In Albert Camus' The Stranger, Meursault’s embodies Camus’ absurdist philosophy through his indifferent attitude to life and his idea that life is just as indifferent towards him.

Absurdism rests on the idea that human beings live in a meaningless universe and yet they try to look for a purpose where there is none. This creates a conflict between a person and their society.

The repetition of Meursault’s indifferent nature emphasizes his absurdist outlook on life.

·         “I told her it didn’t mean anything but that I didn’t think so” (35)

·         “I said yes but that really it was all the same to me” (41)

·         “When I was a student, I had lots of ambitions like that. But when I had to give up my studies I learned very quickly that none of it really mattered.

·         “I said it didn’t make any difference to me and that we could if she wanted to” (41)

·         “I answered the same way I had the last time, that it didn’t mean anything but that I probably didn’t love her” (41)

All of the above quotes are examples of Meursault’s indifference. Things “don’t make a difference” to him, they are “really […] all the same to [him]” (41).

• “I went with him as far as the bungalow, and as he climbed the wooden steps, I just stood there at the bottom, my head ringing from the sun, unable to face the effort it would take to climb the wooden staircase and face the women again. […] To stay or go, It amounted to the same thing” (56-57)

This quote is an allusion to The Myth of Sisyphus, an essay that is also by Albert Camus which paints the Greek mythological figure Sisyphus as an Absurdist hero. Meursault is Sisyphus here, looking up the stairs, his mountain, and the emotional stress of the day is his boulder. Meursault has just seen Raymond climb up those steps for at least the second time that day and is starting to think he cannot go back with him. The notion that Meursault has that “to stay or go, it [amounts] to the same thing” is obviously untrue, for up the stairs there is safety, while away from the stairs a possible threat of danger (57). This image of Meursault at the stairs can also be viewed as whether or not he should take the moral “high road” or the immoral “low road”. Though Meursault himself has no viewpoint of moral or immoral, the stairs represent taking a better route in life, staying safe in the bungalow, while the low road leads to danger and eventually a murder.