I found Meursault in The Stranger to be both an interesting and disturbing character, especially in the beginning. I like characters that don't always have the best intentions, and I think a lot of people do, judging by the popularity of TV shows with anti-heroes. They're interesting to watch but I think there's also a lot of fantasy going on, with people thinking hey if I wasn't bound by moral constraints or whatever, I could totally be that badass. What makes Meursault weird is that he... doesn't have intentions? He needs to satisfy basic human desires like hunger & comfort, etc, but other than that he just sort of hangs around and goes along with things. He does some pretty bad things, like writing that letter and obviously shooting the Arab, but they're just things he does because doing it seems to be less bother than not doing it... Raymond just asked so nicely and it was so hot out and he just doesn't want to go back and face the women... It makes it more difficult to read because I can't really trust that he has good intentions or accept that he has bad ones.
It was interesting to read the book after reading Hemingway -- I think we talked about this in class -- I kept wanting to read emotions into Meursault, especially in the first chapter. Jake had some emotions I could relate to, even if they weren't all on the surface, but Meursault was kind of in this haze. Even his desire for people to like him seemed kind of muted. It would be nice if people saw it his way, but eh, sometimes it's just too much effort. It was hard to stop reading this as a temporary numbness as a way of coping and just accept that that's the way he is.
There was this one line in the second part of the book about how seeing how much everyone hated Meursault made him want to cry, and it kind of surprised me how much sympathy I gained for Meursault from that line and the little indications of how much he didn't like the prison. He seemed happy in the first part and even mentioned it a couple of times (like at the very end where he says he was happy on the beach) but really it took him being unhappy to find something to... like? I thought Meursault was an interesting character throughout the book but he only really seemed human & relatable when his sadness & anger came out.
Yeah I got the same feeling. Usually I am really good at relating to all the characters, but Meursault was just so shut off. I couldn't even figure out what his actual opinions were because in many cases it took to much effort for him to generate one. I liked that he wasn't judgmental about anybody, but that doesn't mean he has no opinions. Not until the end when he basically snaps do we see WHY that was. The why is always the most important, even the jury was trying to figure that out, it's just that Meursault doesn't see things that way. He sees that the world has no meaning and no purpose. It's totally random, but nobody else wants to accept that. Only when we understand that he actually does care about some very human things does he really feel like a whole person to us. Before that he's really just a character, and sort of 2-dimensional.
ReplyDeleteI didn't think that Mersault was ever 2-dimensional; 2-dimensional makes me think boring, but I think his attitude in the beginning of the book was really intriguing. I did get sort of sigh of relief at the end when we find out what he's really thinking, but it was almost disappointing in a way to find out that his differentness was reasoned out rather than him just being like that. It would have been a really unsatisfying book if that hadn't happened in the end, and my favorite scene is still the final one with the chaplain. But I think the first part of the book is 3-dimensional in its own right.
DeleteI think the whole emotional detachment has sort of become a more common and relatable since the 90's and grunge and whatnot. I felt that The Stranger totally works for out time period as well as the 40s. I could relate to him from the beginning, and his exploding at the priest didn't surprise me all that much.
ReplyDeleteWhen we go back through part 1, we *can* see all kinds of evidence that Meursault is "happy" and takes simple pleasure in things like the sea, and the nightly promenade outside his balcony. But you're right that imprisonment makes him see this happiness for what it is, to not simply take it for granted--freedom has to be removed before we'll appreciate it? I wrote about this same topic in my post "Meursault at the Window"--I find it impossible not to empathize deeply with him when he's hearing the simple sounds of the evening and realizing that this world is forever cut off from him.
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