"In a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. The divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity.“ "To become god is merely to be free on this earth, not to serve an immortal being. Above all, of course,it is drawing all the inferences from that painful independence.“   -

Albert Camus

Meursault Character

Supervised by Supervised by Dr. Mongi Raddadi

Done byDone byHessah Saleh Al-DayelHessah Saleh Al-Dayel

In this novel we are going to concentrated about the character (Meursault) which means the representation of a person in a play,story,novel,or poem.A character who has a one-track personality,or who represents a stereotype,is often referred to as flat.A character who displays a realistically complex combination of traits including mixed emotions,conflicting motivations,and divided loyalties is often called round.Both of these kinds of characters we are going to see it in Meursault character. Meursault, the narrator of The Stranger, is an existential anti-hero. Locked into the routine of daily existence, his life is a shapeless void without ideas, preferences, goals, or emotions.  Like a robot, Meursault responds to everything automatically, neither feeling nor caring.  When he is offered a job transfer to Paris, Meursault says he does not care where he works; yet he does not go because moving would be too much trouble. He wants to live, without relinquishing any of his certainty, without a future, without hope, without illusions, and without resignation either . His mother’s death is met with similar lack of response:  he feels no despair or grief. That clear through this qoutation “MOTHER died today .Or,may be,yesterday;I can not be sure.The telegram from the Home says:YOUR MOTHER PASSED A WAY. FUNERAL TOMMORROW. DEEP SYMPATHY. Which leaves the matter doubtful; it could have been yesterday” The book opens as Meursault recalls his mother's death. “Maman dies prior to the opening”, yet, Meursault cannot remember exactly when, why, or any information of related significance. He thinks of his mother in a distant emotional state and continues

about with his daily life, as if nothing has changed since her death. ,HoweverMeursault’s awakening and recovery, he is unmoved by his mother’s death because death itself holds no meaning for him

The hero is a clerk and he reaches self-knowledge by committing a crime - he shoots an Arab on the beach without explicit reason and motivation so we can consider him in this situation as a round character..He kills the Arab under psychological pressure- it was hot, the Arab had earlier terrorized him and his friend Raymond, and he had an headache. On the other hand,the minor characters in the novel touch Meursault’s life but never penetrate his consciousness.  Marie Cardona, Meursault’s girl friend, is an attractive young woman, fond of life and aware of its joys.  She intends to marry Meursault, but when he is imprisoned for murder, his hopelessness finally dissuades her visits.  Her firm commitment to life and love amplifies Meursault’s lack of direction.

 

 

  After murdering the Arab, Meursault progresses by degrees to a full recognition of his own purposelessness and impending death. During the long months of imprisonment, he slowly realizes that his former life was not empty.  He misses the freedom to make love to a woman, smoke cigarettes at will, or go for a swim.  These small joys, once meaningless, take on new importance when denied.  Meursault begins searching for the purpose of his existence but ends by creating one.All these events we can consider him as a round character .Meursault does not finally reject God and eternity until the priest visits his cell.  In a single, violent moment of catharsis, he accepts life’s absurdity and embraces his own death.

Inaddtion,Camus wrote The Stranger as an enticement to his readers, to think about their own mortality and the meaning of their existence. The hero, or anti-hero, of The Stranger is Meursault. His life and attitudes possess no rational order. His actions are strange to us, there seems to be no reason behind them. We are given no reason why he chooses to marry Marie or gun down an Arab. For this, he is a stranger amongst us . The hero has some kind of outsider, a foreigner, then quite probably his acts would have been accepted as irrational evil.

Inconclusion ,the writer successful to represent his character which represent his own thought and belife. Meursault was not an outsider; he was a member of his society –

a society that wants meaning behind action.These events show a flat character. Camus depicts society's attempt to manufacture meaning behind Meursault's actions. The trial is absurd in that the judge, prosecutors, lawyers and jury try to find meaning where none is to be found. Everyone, except Meursault, has there own ‘reason' why Meursault shot the Arab but none of them are, or can be, correct. In life there are never shortages of opinion as to why this or that thing occurred. How close to any of them get to the meaning behind action? . The auther is writing a book about our endless search for meaning. We are all looking for a purpose in our lives.

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