Diction In The Stranger

In the novel, at a point in time he kills a man without any concrete motive to do so, and this leads to him being sentenced to death. The sun is a very powerful symbol in the work, it is omnipresent. At the funeral, at the beach when he is with Marie, at the time he kills the Arab, the sun is always there. It may be argued that the symbolism of the sun leads to Meursault's downfall. In this Written Assignment I will discuss the fatal flaws of Meursault, the symbolism of the sun and how this affects the

This is the moment where Meursault truly feels alone and isolated from the world, but he hangs on to his memories of his girlfriend Marie. In this seclusion, Meursault learns that humans exist in a meaningless world that is only worth living due to the idea of love. He learns that he loves the possessions that he can not have such as cigarettes and swimming. It is through this loss that Meursault learns that love is what saves us from the world and that morality makes this idea more possible. (Mikics et al).

The sun is present at his mother’s funeral, when he refuses to grieve. It is also at he beach, and it is the sun in his eyes that causes him to shoot the Arab. Meursault is cooperative and reacts passively to situations around him. Raymond is almost the exact opposite; he is very opinionated, active and assertive. One of the first encounters between the two characters is when Raymond invites Meursault to eat with him and when Raymond invites Meursault to the house on the beach.

Camus uses the motif of weather, most commonly sun and heat, to express Meursault’s emotions. Meursault often describes the weather and how it ‘affects’ him. This can symbolize his actual feelings he tries to hide. An example can be found when Meursault is walking to his mother’s funeral. On the outside he is calm and even seems a little annoyed.

Overall he leads an indifferent life which results in poor and meaningless relationships with people such as his mother, girlfriend, and neighbours. Meursault lacks emotion and compassion, because of this he doesn’t react to anything negative in his life and remains

Meursault views the world through a lens of detachment and indifference. In his eyes, it is not important to do things in such a way that it may benefit the greater good. As with all Nihilists, he does not see any real basis to life. Meursault takes no interest in the aspects of life that gives others meaning such as love, religion, or a career. He does not mourn for his mother, only briefly considers Marie, and has no real affection for any of his "friends" until the end.

(59) After long passages describing the painful violence of the sun, Camus’s transition into the murder is shockingly abrupt, provoking a sense of bewilderment at the unexpected randomness of the murder, conveying effectively the irrationality of Meursault’s murder of the man. However, during the trial, when Meursault reveals that he murdered the Arab only because of the sun, refusing to allow others impose their logical but false interpretations upon his life, “people laughed” (103) and even his own “lawyer threw up his hand” (103) as they are unable comprehend and accept such an irrational motivation. To protect themselves from this harsh reality of the universe, they can only fabricate and impose their own logical explanation for Meursault’s behavior. The prosecutor, for instance, is convinced Meursault murdered the man in cold blood, certain in the narrative he has constructed out of events completely unrelated to the murder, from Meursault’s “ignorance when asked Maman’s age” (99) to his association with a man of “doubtful morality” (99). In both cases, Meursault’s indifference for societal standards of morality has painted him as a man immoral and cold-hearted enough to premeditate the murder.

Meursault does not see meaning in love or marriage while Marie is somewhat romantic. Marie does not need an epic love story, but she is desperate to get married. When Meursault and Marie get together the couple display an interesting dynamic. Meursault is brutally honest with Marie on his ideas about love and his feelings for her. Marie wants the relationship to move fast towards marriage so she constantly asks Meursault questions to see how he feels about her: "A moment later she asked me if I loved her.

In society, the belief in God is prominent; however, in Meursault 's eyes, nothing is meaningful in life and the only factuality in existence is death. Another external conflict is that Meursault comes to the realization that death is inevitable rather than being regretful of the murder (he does not realize his wrong-doings). “Nothing, nothing mattered, and I knew why. So did he. Throughout the whole absurd life I 'd lived, a dark wind had been rising toward me from somewhere deep in my future, across years that were still to come, and as it passed, this wind leveled whatever was offered to me at the time, in years no more real than the ones I was living.

In similar fashion, we see Meursault 's friend, Raymond, getting himself into trouble with his mistress for abusing her. After hearing about this, a police officer comes to stop the conflict and slaps Raymond across the face for not cooperating. Eventually, the mistress’s brother, who Meursault refers to as “the Arab” comes to get revenge on Raymond for beating up his sister by slashing Raymond 's arm and mouth with a knife. After getting wrapped up and with bandages, they go back to the beach where the Arab last was, but this time Meursault gets into the fight and shoots the Arab five times until he was motionless. Meursault 's explanation to this was that, “My eyes were blinded behind the curtain of tears and salt...my whole being tensed and I squeezed my hand around the revolver.

At the beginning of the novel, the reader gets a tone of emptiness from Meursault’s reaction to the death of his mother. People would offer him condolence, but his way of interacting with others made Meursault seem a bad guy and unusual. When he explained to his boss the reason of taking two days off, Meursault even said, “It’s not my fault.” (Camus 3). Meursault stating that shows the significance of the death of his mother to him.

“As Meursault pulled the trigger, he could feel the heat from his cheek from the sandy bright beach.” In The Stranger, the author Albert Camus uses different methods of mood and atmosphere in the novel which heightened the understanding of the novel and contributed to the descriptive patterns of the book. From the heat symbolism that creates a certain atmosphere in the book, to the specific mood he portrays in the novel. This all goes into the pattern that Camus blatantly put in the book to show a specific mood and to add an atmosphere to the novel. To start off, when Meursault states in the book that he feels a certain way for example heat or temperature it gives way to the descriptive patterns and symbolism, for example, to quote from the novel itself, Meursault says...

Sun sets the stage got the climax of Meursault’s murder of the Arab. Sun is depicted as a distraction to Meursault and causes him to do things he would not normally do, causing him to commit a serious crime which will cause him death penalty. Another significant symbol in The Stranger is ‘outsider’. Meursault is a person who does not belong to the society. Meursault is a character who is detached and unemotional as he is insensitive of everything as an

My reflection seemed to remain serious even though I was trying to smile at it, and for the first time in months, I distinctly heard the sound of my own voice”(81). Through his words the author makes him feel as which he feels a sense of stuck in his own world and wants to find peace but the destination is just too far away. Meursault is born into this state of mind that he has no conception of what life is, what he wants out of life, no real longing for relationship, or just life in general. This aspect of his personality is what makes him the stranger that people don’t understand and have no ways to understand the idea behind the ways at which his mind

In a fit of irrationality, he non nonchalantly murders the Arab in cold blood. After the first shoot, he passively states,” "the trigger gave[…]" (59). With a lack of empathy for the injured Arab, he continues to shoot the body four additional times. In the aftermath of the slaying, the narrator does not focus on the immediate consequences of the murder; rather, once more detailing the oppressive heat, a source of the murder. Because of the heat and the light reflected off of the Arab’s knife, Meursault absurdly thought to shot the Arab.