What Is Raymond A Static Character

The conviction of Meursault represents another main point of absurdism, that life is precious. It only takes forty five minutes for an entire jury to unanimously decide to send Meursault to the guillotine, which is unreasonable. Camus is trying to point this out as one of society’s wrongdoings. The prosecutor's argument had appealed to the jury's emotions and society’s standards rather than reason. If the jury had not felt the emotions that were supposed to influence their decision, the prosecutor's argument would have seemed completely irrational. In a rational world, Meursault's emotions regarding his mother or her funeral would not have influenced his verdict. Meursault commits a crime against an Arab, while Raymond, who had also done so earlier in the book, did not get into any trouble. He would still be found guilty, but only for the crime he committed. This would have definitely lightened his sentence; however, Meursault is sentenced to death. Camus proves the court’s hypocrisy and shows how human

I also don’t understand why Meursault had to write the letter to Raymond’s mistress. I hate Raymond. I hate him so much, his reasons for his violence are ridiculous. Is the book making a point that one’s complacency can be detrimental to others? I’m just wondering because Meursault is constantly talking about that poor dog, but never does anything. And when Raymond asks what his opinion was on his act of violence and Meursault stays indifferent. It’s ridiculous.

1. How does Camus set up Meursault's personality -- how does Meursault respond to others' conversation, to ordinary social situations, and to the death of his mother?

Later on he commits the crime of shooting an arab man, whom was the brother of his friends ex-partner. Yet again he showed no emotion whatsoever even after what he did. Since he had already had a bad reputation for not mourning his mother’s death, not feeling sorry for killing a man made it all worse. No one felt pity for him whatsoever, not even his lawyer who was suppose to be on his side. Meursault is considered a threat because of his lack of moral feelings www.sparknotes.com. He is found guilty and sentenced to prison, where in time he learns to accept himself, and his way of viewing life, and for the first time feels happy.

While the three men are walking on the beach, they encounter two Arabs, one of whom is Raymond’s former mistress’s brother. Eventually, Meursault ends up in prison for shooting Raymond’s mistress’ brother without reason. Meursault’s lawyer is shocked by his lack of remorse and grief for both his crime, and his mother’s death. Upon being labeled as “Monsieur Antichrist” by the magistrate, Meursault starts viewing himself as an outsider. The time he spends in prison helps him adjust to his seclusion from women, cigarettes, and nature, and he eventually learns to live without them.

In Albert Camus’ The Stranger, Meursault is seen as a very unique character, but not in a good way. Throughout the novel, he continually fails to show normal human emotions to things like his mother’s death, Marie’s love, and the man he killed. Most people in his town, along with the reader at first, are not able to reason out his actions but as the final events of the novel unfold, the reader begins to see Meursault in a different light.

In the novel, The Stranger by Albert Camus, Meursault the protagonist, becomes drawn into a “senseless” murder that has to face the absurdity of life and because of his actions, Meursault is presented as a danger due to his lack of “morality” to society. Meursault who is not able to take control of his life but respond to what life offers him believes in the simplicity of life. He tries to understand the living through logic and objectivity, which ultimately turns futile, as he himself cannot maintain proper control over his thoughts and emotions. From the interactions between Marie, to the murder of the Arab, and the meeting with the Chaplain, Meursault overcomes his indifferent views to form an opinion about what life really means. The central theme presented by Camus is how the threat of mortality becomes a catalyst for understanding the significance of life.

T: Meursault’s inability to connect with others and to conform in this supposed ‘societal happiness’ leads him to be branded as an ‘Outsider’ and condemns him to an implied execution at the climax of the novel. His death is not one governed by his murdering of another man, but rather due to his inability to meet the behavioural standards deemed acceptable by the jury judging him.

Meursault was introduced as a young man whom recently found out his mother, Maman, died. He was not the most emotional person, but he dealt with his feelings the best he knew how. Meursault lived his life on the verge of truth and honesty. He was honest within every aspect of life, from women to freedom. He was never certain about anything in life ,but one thing he was sure of, death was inevitable. After murdering an Arab, he was on trial in front of many people being interrogated with many questions about why he did what he did, but also to evaluate his psyche about the situation. Unlike others, Meursault did not hide from the truth and that is what others could not cope with. Living his life the way others were afraid to, Meursault was the outcast in his society.

Camus continues to exemplify poor relationships now in the form of Maries and Meursault toxic relationship. Camus introduces Marie as a past thing that never actually evolved into a relationship because Meursault didn't want it to. Right from the beginning, the significance Marie has is slim but still higher than Raymond's girlfriend because she is given a name. By having her being illustrated to us, Camus shows us her significance. However, Meursault doesn't hold such significance in their relationship.

When he returns home to Algiers, Meursault carries on with life as normal. Over dinner one evening, his neighbor Raymond tells of his desire to punish his mistress for infidelity, and asks Meursault to write a letter to the mistress for him. Meursault agrees, saying "I tried my best to please Raymond because I didn’t have any reason not to please him" (32). While Raymond is a man of questionable morals, he acts with purpose. Meursault, on the other hand, acts with mostly passive indifference, doing things simply because he doesn’t have a reason not to do them.

I agreed to act as a witness for him” (37), the contextual evidence proves that Raymond only uses Meursault for his own benefit by making him his witness. In this relationship, Camus presents Raymond with selfish-like characteristics for using Meursault for his own benefit and not returning the favor to Meursault.

Meursault begins The Stranger devoid of human sympathy and emotions. He demonstrates such blank indifference in the situation when Raymond brutally beats his girlfriend. Marie “asked [Meursault] to go find a policeman, but [he] told her [he] didn 't like cops.” (Camus, 36) When encountering cruel domestic violence, he shows no feelings of sympathy or disgust. He has no motivation to act, allowing a mere dislike of police to trump his ability to end senseless conflict. Meursault also murders a man in cold blood. Not only does he whimsically allow the mere shine of sunlight to give him justification to end a man’s life, he further illustrates a lack of human emotion, calmly firing “four more times at the motionless body where the bullets lodged without leaving a trace.” (Camus, 59) He remains the same blank slate, without any regret or sadness for what he has done nor fear of the consequences. Although Meursault looks human, he is clearly monstrous and lacks all emotions commonplace to people.

He has no initial reaction to the news of her death, and at her funeral service he did not bother to even see her before she was buried. His lack of emotion is evident in the very first lines of the book, “Mother died today. Or maybe it was yesterday, I don’t know.” This shows that Meursault is hardly caring for his mother. Society’s standards would result in him to be in absolute mourning and wanting to go as fast as possible to her body. This is not the only example of Meursault’s lack of emotion and care for factors in his life. He does not care for love and marriage after having intercourse with someone; the society standard at this time was to get married if two partners had intercourse. He does not care for promotion and career advancement when his boss offers him a better job opportunity; the standard at that time and right now is to pursue the best career possible. In these scenarios Meursault is living free from the chains, and does whatever he thinks is right to do. Eventually, society rejects him and his ways, and he gets in trouble with the law. He is judged by society and his ways are ridiculed, making Meursault appear to be a monster.

In addition, Meursault cannot find a solid place in society. He lives alone due to the death of his mother. Society cannot accept the manner in which Meursault addresses his mother’s death. Since he thinks that “Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, [he doesn’t] know” (Camus 3), society believes that he does not care that his mother dies. Everyone judges him because he does not relate to the rest of the people. Meursault receives immense criticism at his trial concerning his murdering another man. At his trial, Meursault can “feel how much all these people [the jury] hated” (Camus 90) him. The jury does not commend him or even regard him with understanding about his mother’s death. Some people react to death without actually reacting to it; Meursault subconsciously chooses to do so but receives condemnation. Both characters experience isolation from society.