The Stranger- Albert Camus

UNKNOWN WORDS (CHAP. 1-3)

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

Monsieur Meursault: The main protagonist of the novel who lives in a mystified world and cares only for physical world. His character in the novel is characterized by indifference and uncaring by not showing no affection to his Mother’s death. Moreover, he does not remember his Mother’s age and is not sure whether his Mother died today or maybe yesterday. 

Mother: A character who is shown as a dead person in the novel. It is the mother of the main protagonist Monsieur Meursault. Through reading the novel we find out that the Mother and Monsieur were not so close since she lived at Home and Monsieur rarely visited her. Also, she had good friends at Home and one of them was Thomas Perez.

Marie Cardona: Monsieur’s girlfriend who used to be a typist at his office and Monsieur was attracted by her. While Monsieur was wondering how to spend the morning right after his Mother’s funeral he finally decides that a swim would do him good. There he meets Marie Cardona and invites her to go to the movies together. Later in the story she asks Monsieur to marry her and he agrees even he does not love her. Moreover, he says to her that he would marry to any women in the same situation. He is happy with her but there is no emotional connection between them.

Thomas Perez: Monsieur’s Mother’s special friend. People of the Home believe that he was in love with Mother. 
Emmanuel: Co-worker and Monsieur’s friend.

Salamano: Monsieur’s neighbor who has a dog almost eight years old. He always yells at him dog. It seems like they hate each other. 

Raymond Sintes: Another neighbor of Monsieur who sometimes invites for dinner Monsieur and of course he goes therefore he does not need to cook. Raymond likes Monsieur because he is always there willing to listen him.

 

INTRODUCTION

“The Stranger” is a novel written by the French-Algerian author Albert Camus who presents the meaningless/absurd world of the main protagonist of narrative Monsieur Meursault. The novel is divided in two parts; in the first part we get to know Monsieur as emotionless, indifferent and unperceptive about the world outside while in the second part the personality of the character is presented as a conscious man who wants to know about his existence/surroundings, specifically to know more about the world outside and people around him. It seems like in the second part of the novel he does not care for physical world anymore rather than looking for a change in his life. Thus, he starts to have feelings about the people he knows, wants to explore the world around him and for the first time he wants to know everything about the life he leads. But what made him to change his mind when he was so indifferent to physical world in the first part? I think the Arab man is what makes the Monsieur thinks twice before he acts. Prison changes people’s life, so this happened to Monsieur. Yet, in part one we as readers are not introduce with the “murder” that he does, but later on we find out the reason of the “unintentionally” murder. It is unbelievable how the author uses sun as a symbol or metaphor to force the protagonist to make the murder by bringing him in confrontation with the Arabs that consequently he the Monsieur ends up in prison. I

CHAPTER 1-3:

“MOTHER died today. Or, maybe, yesterday; I cannot be sure.” That is how the first chapter begins. These words were written in a telegram from the HOME (the place where Monsieur’s mother used to live) and obviously there was nothing else written on it. The Home was in Marengo, two hours away from the place where Monsieur lives. So, to get there he needs to travel by bus, losing his “Sunday”, spending two hours of journey and also asking his boss for two days off because of the funeral. Here we notice that the narrator seems to be unattached by the news of his mom’s death and moreover he does not even know the age of his mother. The word MOTHER is not as powerful as it should be to Monsieur. By this the Camus wants to tell readers that Monsieur did not have a good relationship with his mother therefore he “seldom went to see her”.  In addition, when he gets the telegram, he is like ok I have to go and be at the funeral. But we notice here that Monsieur cares more about the way how to get there than for his mother. On the other hand, when he arrives in Marengo he meets the warden-the person who was in charge of the funeral. He explains the procedure of funeral to Monsieur and says to him that he made all the arrangements for it. But when Monsieur was asked to see his mother, he said no. This made me think that he is such emotionless, irresponsible and indifferent to her. Moreover, while he was coming to Marengo he falls asleep. That is not the first case when he falls asleep. Instead of waiting his mother’s friends to keep the vigil together, he smokes. On the other hand, usually when a loved one dies people feel an overwhelmed pain in their soul but that was not the case of Monsieur.  It is noticeable that in the vigil the only who cries are Thomas Perez, his mother’s best friend who I assume was in love with his mother and also a woman.  

Right after his mother funeral in chapter two we notice the Monsieur looks for entreating himself, so he goes on swimming pool. There he meets Marie Cardona- a girl who was in love with him and used to work in his office as a typist. Monsieur invites her to go to the cinema together and watch a comedy movie. Instead of staying home and crying for his mother’s death, he decides to go out with his Marie to whom he was attracted. Here also it is noticeable that the main character does not care for his mother death-still he is uncaring to it. Nothing explains his attitude toward his mother’s death even they were not so close. When he tells the Marie that his mom had died, she was very surprised. Monsieur did not comment at all about his mother’s funeral- not even a single detail was told to Marie.  On the other hand, there is no information about Marie’s personality. We just know that she loves Monsieur and nothing else. On the other hand, after they sleep together she immediately leaves without even writing him a note to thank for the beautiful night they had together. Here we notice Monsieur as a caring person, who is affected by Marie even he never says to her 143 “I love you”. On the other hand, we know about Monsieur’s personality. In this chapter there are too many details about Monsieur’s life such as weekend days. Moreover, the chapter two ends with a statement of Monsieur saying, “Really, nothing in my life had changed”.

Chapter three begins with Monsieur going back to the place where he works. His boss asks him about his mother’s age. But Monsieur does not know the exact age of his mother, so at the beginning he thinks and then tells to his boss “round about sixty”. It seems like Monsieur is not sure at all about his mother’s age because of the lack communication with her. Maybe the reason why Monsieur was not so close to his mother is because they had a bad family history. That is, that makes him be so self-absorbed. On the other hand, in this chapter there are three other characters of the narrative presented. The fist one is Emmanuel who works together with Monsieur in the office. The second is his neighbor Salamano who has a dog eight months old. To Monsieur Salamano seems to be an abusive man because he treats his dog cruelly and violently. On the other hand, the dog seems to have the same character as Salamano. In addition, the second character is Raymond Sintes who tells a story with his girlfriend. He says to Monsier that his girlfriend is cheating on him and that he sometimes beats her. Moreover, in this chapter we find two types of violence the first one toward the dog and the second one toward a girlfriend.