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Patrick Malone

Ryan Gallagher

English 12 CP

14 Jan. 2011

The Life of Camus: An Analysis on Albert Camus’ The Stranger

Throughout the novel Albert Camus’ The Stranger, he uses foils to show that Meursault

has changed from when he was with Maman after she died and when he was with the priest in

the jail cell. Meursault’s relationship with Marie has different kinds of actions. When Marie talks

about them getting married Meursault right away acts like he doesn’t care what they do.

However, when Meursault talks back and forth to Marie through the window inside the jail, he

says that he has everything right there and he is referring to Marie (Camus 74-75). This all takes

place in France 1942. “His instinctual rejection of ideologies and the carefully nurtured

ambiguity which informs all his works and, in the eyes of several critics, some of his positions

are some of the reasons for the increasingly ambivalent reception his work has received in

France. The flow of criticism on Camus is matched only by the perennially high sales figures of

his major works, both in French and in translation. Camus remains a popular but controversial

writer whose importance and influence are undeniable. To understand the ongoing controversy,

his thought and work must be seen in the decisive contexts of his formative years in North Africa

and his self-imposed "exile" in Paris during and after World War II.” (paragraph 1).
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In the passage when Meursault tells the caretaker that he doesn't want to see Maman after

she died, Albert Camus shows that Meursault did not have a good relationship with Maman

because of how he did not want to look at her body when she died. For humans, this symbolizes

that not all people have close relationships with family members. Also, Meursault may have

feared the death of his mother and was embarrassed and had feelings of guilt because he did not

visit her while she was in the home.

When the passage begins, Meursault starts by saying "Maman died today" (3). Meursault

says he will take the two o'clock bus and get to the old people's home in the afternoon. He slept

the whole bus ride which shows that his thoughts were not on Maman's death.

Meursault wanted to see Maman right away but the caretaker told him that he had to see

the director first. The director told him, "Madame Meursault came to us three years ago. [He

was] her sole support. [He didn’t] have to justify himself... I've read your mother's file. You

weren't able to provide her properly. She needed someone to look after her. You earn only a

modest salary. And the truth of the matter is, she was happier here" (4). "You're young, and it

must have been hard for her with you" (5).

When Maman was at home with Meursault, she used to spend her time following him

with her eyes, not saying a thing, which further suggests a distant relationship. She cried a lot the

first few days because she wasn't used to the home. But, as the director tells Meursault, after "a

few months. ..she would have cried if she'd been taken out. She was used to it"(5). That year of

Maman being in the home, Meursault did not go there to visit much. He also said it took up his

Sunday, and it was too much trouble to buy a bus ticket and spend two hours traveling to visit

her. Meursault had no thoughts or feelings toward Maman. Camus describes a human acts this

way because people are selfish and they don’t want to be there for others. This also takes place in
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Algiers 1942 and World War II is taking place. “The initial Italian invasion of Egypt in 1940 was

repelled by a few divisions of British Middle East Command. By February 1941, reinforced units

under the command of General Archibald Wavell had advanced 1,700 miles into the Italian

colony of Libya, taking the port of Tobruk and over 114,000 prisoners. Hitler, unwilling to see

his Italian ally humiliated, sent a tank division and air support (later expanded into the Afrika

Korps) under the command of General Erwin Rommel to strengthen the Italian army. Rommel

launched his offensive in April 1941 retaking Libya and driving the British back to the Egyptian

border” (paragraph 3).

The director spoke to Meursault again. "I suppose you'd like to see your mother. I'll leave

you now, Monsieur Meursault. If you need me for anything, I'll be in my office"(Camus 5).

Meursault thanked him. Meursault went in the room and soon after, the caretaker came in. "We

put the cover on, but I'm supposed to unscrew the casket so you can see her. You don't want to?"

"No." "Why not?" "I don't know." "I understand"(p.6).

Life is too short and just like Maman, we will eventually die someday and will regret our

actions of not having the chance to be close to a loved one that we may lose at any given time.

Still, throughout Albert Camus’ The Stranger, Albert Camus uses the priest as a foil to

show that Meursault has changed from when he was with Maman after she died. He goes from

emotionless from after Maman died and he gets emotional when the priest shows up in his jail

cell.

In the passage when Meursault yells at the priest when he comes to talk to him, Albert

Camus shows that Meursault did not have a good relationship with him because of how he

treated him. This symbolized that not all people have close relationships and get along with each

other. This shows us that Meursault’s attitude changed from being selfish to being unmannerly.
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Albert Camus has Meurusault act this way because he explains what its like to be selfish and to

not be there for another family member.

When the passage begins, Meursault starts by yelling at the top of his lungs at the priest.

Meursault says, "I insulted him and told him not to waste his prayers on me"(Camus 120).

Meursault then grabbed him by the collar of his cassock and was pouting out on him everything

that was in his heart, cries of anger and joy. Meursault feels guilty and tells the priest to not

waste his time on him. "I had lived my life one way and I could just as well have lived it

another" (p.121). Meursault has feelings of death.

Meursault still has feelings of guilt because he didn't cry at Maman's funeral. Meursault

felt that because he didn't cry, it didn't matter. It didn't matter that he was accused of murder and

being executed.

Meursault has gasped for air because of all the shouting he did. "But they were already

tearing the chaplain form my grip and the guards were threatening me" (Camus 122). The

chaplain calmed them and looked at Meursault for a moment without saying a word. The

chaplain's eyes were full of tears and then he turned away and disappeared.

The chaplain then left and Meursault was able to calm down. Then he started to think

about Maman again. "I was exhausted and threw myself on my bunk. I must have fallen asleep

because I woke up with stars in my face. For the first time in a long time I thought about Maman.

So close to death, Maman must have felt free then and ready to live it all again too" (Camus

123). This shows he is still thinking about Maman and having guilty feelings about Maman and

their relationship.

Life is too short because just like Maman, we will eventually die someday and well regret

our actions on not having the chance to be close to a loved one that we may lose at any given
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time. Also just like Maman, Meursault is going to die and be executed and his death is going to

be quick. This relates to part 1 because Meursault still has guilty feelings about his relationship

with Maman and he did not have a good relationship with the priest either because of his

behavior.

Throughout the novel The Stranger, Albert Camus shows that Meursault’s behavior

towards Maman and the priest have changed in a big way because he went from being

emotionless after Maman died, and he became very emotional when the priest walked into this

jail cell. This explains that he didn’t have a good relationship with Maman and the priest. For

humans, this symbolizes that people that act like Meursault, do not have close relationship with

loved ones or people that are being mice and trying to help him. If Meursault had changed his

attitude form the beginning, maybe he wouldn’t end up where he is now.

Annotated Bibliography for Camus’ The Stranger

Camus, Albert French Novelists, 1930-1960. Ed. Catharine Savage Brosman. Dictionary of
Literary Biography Vol. 72. Detroit: Gale Research, 1988. From Literature Resource
Center. COPYRIGHT 1988 Gale Research, COPYRIGHT 2007 Gale, Cengage Learning

Summary:
Albert Camus describes his life and how he went to the War. It is also how he became a
writer when he was young.

Important Quotes:
“His instinctual rejection of ideologies and the carefully nurtured ambiguity which
informs all his works and, in the eyes of several critics, some of his positions are some of
the reasons for the increasingly ambivalent reception his work has received in France.
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From the cold war period through the Algerian struggle for independence and into the
1960s, reaction to both the man and his work often turned to hostility and ridicule,
especially among left-wing intellectuals in France who thought that he had betrayed
them. Outside of France, where Camus has been the subject of more detached critical
inquiry, his reputation has continued to grow. The flow of criticism on Camus is matched
only by the perennially high sales figures of his major works, both in French and in
translation. Camus remains a popular but controversial writer whose importance and
influence are undeniable. To understand the ongoing controversy, his thought and work
must be seen in the decisive contexts of his formative years in North Africa and his self-
imposed "exile" in Paris during and after World War II.” (paragraph 1).

Purpose:
In this Biographical essay about Albert Camus, Meursault was around when World War
II was going on. Meursault is considered a stranger for the way he acts. He acts very
strange in jail when the priest tries to help him out. He yells at the priest for trying to
make him believe in God. “I started yelling at the top of my lungs, and I insulted him and
told him not to waste his prayers on me. I grabbed him by the collar of his cassock. I was
pouring out on him everything that was in my heart, cries of anger and cries of joy. He
seemed so certain about everything, didn’t he? And yet none of his certainties was worth
one hair of a woman’s head. He wasn’t even sure he was alive, because he was living like
a dead man. Whereas it looked as if I was the one who’d come up empty handed” (Camus
120). “With him gone, I was able to calm down again. I was exhausted ant threw myself
on my bunk. I must have fallen asleep, because I woke up with the stars in my face”
(Camus 122).

Derksen, Celeste “The House That Jack Built”. Modern Drama. 45.2 (Summer 2002): p209.
From Literature Resource Center.

Summary:

This article is about what Absurdism is. It was really hard to understand. This is based on a
play..

Important Quotes:

“The play's raise en scene constructs a sense of their enclosure in systems of language and in
personal and economic relationships that, while they might provide the illusion of meaning and
agency, in fact control their potential meanings and actions” (paragraph 8).

Purpose:

Meursault has a relationship with Marie and they have certain kinds of actions. When Marie talks
about them getting married Meursault right away acts like he doesn’t care what they do.
However, when Meursault talks back and forth to Marie through the window inside the jail, he
says that he has everything right there and he is referring to Marie (Camus 74-75).
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"Gaulle, Charles de."Europe Since 1914: Encyclopedia of the Age of War and Reconstruction.
Ed. John Merriman and Jay Winter.Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2006. 1172-1177. Gale
World History In Context. Web.

Summary:

This was a biography Charles De Gaulle. It was about his time in the army.

Important quotes:

“Even though Pétain had taught at the École de Guerre (War College), he had no hope of
becoming a general, because he had voiced reservations about theories favoring offensive
military strategies, which were then considered de rigueur. Although the war would allow Pétain
to assume command of the entire French army in 1917 and to become its marshal in 1918, it was
less favorable to the young de Gaulle. Wounded twice quite early on, first on 15 August 1914
and then again on 10 March 1915, he was wounded a third time, this time seriously, outside
Douaumont during the battle of Verdun on 2 March 1916, and was taken prisoner by the
Germans. Despite several escape attempts, he was not freed until the Armistice of 11 November
1918. He then returned to active service and took part in Maxime Weygand's military mission
during the Russo-Polish War in 1920” (paragraph 2).

Purpose:

Meursault lives by himself after Maman dies. World War II was going on at this time. After
Maman died, Meursault faced problems such as killing an arab man and going to jail and then be
executed. Meursault could not cry when Maman died. He didn’t even want to see her when she
was put in the funeral home. “Just then the caretaker came in behind me. He must have been
running. He stuttered a little. ‘We put the cover on, but I’m supposed to unscrew the casket so
you can see her.’ He was moving toward the casket when I stopped him. He said, ‘You don’t
want to?’ I answered, ‘No.’ He was quiet, and I was embarrassed because I felt I shouldn’t have
said that. He looked at me and then asked, ‘Why not?’ but without criticizing, as if he just
wanted to know. I said, ‘I don’t know.’ He started twirling his moustache, and then without
looking at me, again he said, ‘I understand’” (Camus 6). This shows that he was acting very
selfish at the time.

Korb, Rena. "The Middleman".Literature of Developing Nations for Students: Presenting

Analysis, Context, and Criticism on Literature of Developing Nations. Ed. Elizabeth Bellalouna,
Michael L. LaBlanc, and Ira Mark Milne. Vol. 2. Detroit: Gale Group, 2000. From Literature
Resource Center.

Summary:

An immigrant character is a Jew from Iraq. He lived in India and New York City and has not left
the United States by choice. Overall, he is Jewish, comes form Iraq, a country in the Middle East
that is predominantly Muslim, and as such is an inherent enemy of Jewish people.
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Important Quotes:

"A modest provident fund I'd been maintaining for New Jersey judges was discovered," he
explains. "My fresh new citizenship is always in jeopardy. My dealings can't stand too much
investigation” (paragraph 2).

Purpose:

Meursault is alone in because he is in a jail cell at the end of the book and he awaits his death by
guillotine. “For everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that
there be large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of
hate” (Camus 123).

"LILI BONICHE." Independent [London, England] 21 Apr. 2008: 34. Gale World History In
Context. Web. 8 Dec. 2010.

Summary:

This was an article about immigration. It was about Lili Boniche, who was one of the last of a
generation of Jewish Algerian musicians.

Important Quotes:

“He became known as the ‘crooner of the kasbah’, and started performing at private parties,
beginning to augment his classical roots with other popular styles by his late teens” (paragraph
4). “His songs appeared in a number of French films from around 2000, the year he made his
first UK appearance, at the Africa: Roots and Shoots festival at the Barbican Centre in London -
a frail but jovial figure toting an electric guitar and an incongruously rock'n'roll aura, playing
alongside his long-term colleague the pianist Maurice el Medioni” (paragraph 8).

Purpose:

When Maman died, Meursault was the last member of his family. There was nobody else besides
him. The only person in Meursault’s family at this time was Maman. However, Meursault and
Raymond ended up being friends. The only person that really cared about Maman was Monsieur
Perez. (Camus 16).
Paris, Michael. “El Alamein, the people’s battle”, History Today 52.10 (2002): 21+. Gale World
History in Context.Web.

Summary:

June 10th, 1940, Italy declared war on Britain and France. The British, deprived by the fall of
France, and pre-occupied with the expected German invasion of the British Isles, were unlikely
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to be able to reinforce their small garrison in Egypt. At the third Battle of El Alamein in October
1942, the British Eighth Army under General Bernard Montgomery started the attack that would
drive the Axis from Africa (paragraph 1).

Important Quotes:

“El Alamein was the turning point in North Africa: the victors, the British Eighth Army and its
commander, Bernard Montgomery, are still fondly recalled icons in the memory of the Second
World War”(paragraph 2). “The initial Italian invasion of Egypt in 1940 was repelled by a few
divisions of British Middle East Command. By February 1941, reinforced units under the
command of General Archibald Wavell had advanced 1,700 miles into the Italian colony of
Libya, taking the port of Tobruk and over 114,000 prisoners. Hitler, unwilling to see his Italian
ally humiliated, sent a tank division and air support (later expanded into the Afrika Korps) under
the command of General Erwin Rommel to strengthen the Italian army. Rommel launched his
offensive in April 1941 retaking Libya and driving the British back to the Egyptian border”
(paragraph 3). “The filmmaker Roy Boulting (1913-2001), then attached to the Army Film and
Photographic Unit, later recalled that, in the summer of 1942, he had been told just how crucial
the offensive at El Alamein was to the Allied cause in the Middle East, and thus felt that a film
record should be made of the campaign from footage shot by film units with the Eighth Army”
(paragraph 5).

Purpose:

World War II was going on during this time in The Stranger. This is the time where Meursault
goes to Maman’s funeral. “The old people’s home is at Marengo, about eighty kilometer from
Algiers, I’ll take the two o’clock bus and get there in the afternoon. That way I can be there for
the vigil and come back tomorrow night” (Camus 3).

Poe, Edgar Allan, “Alone” Peotryoutloud.org

Summary:

Edgar Allan Poe describes that he is alone. He couldn’t awaken his heart to make himself happy.

Important Quotes:

From childhood’s hour I have not been

As others were—I have not seen
As others saw—I could not bring
My passions from a common spring—
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow—I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone—
And all I lov’d—I lov’d alone—
Then—in my childhood—in the dawn
Of a most stormy life—was drawn
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From ev’ry depth of good and ill

The mystery which binds me still—
From the torrent, or the fountain—
From the red cliff of the mountain—
From the sun that ’round me roll’d
In its autumn tint of gold—
From the lightning in the sky
As it pass’d me flying by—
From the thunder, and the storm—
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view-”

Purpose:

This relates to The Stranger because Meursault is alone after Maman died. He is also alone when
he is taken to jail and in his own jail cell. He looked at himself in his tin plate. His reflection
seemed to remain serious even though he was trying to smile at it. He smiled and it still had the
same, stern expression. He gazed at his reflection one more time. It was still serious and then
Meursault remembered what the nurse at Maman’s funeral said. “No, there was no way out, and
no one can imagine what nights in prison are like” (Camus 80-81). He is alone when he is buried
with his own thoughts as he awaits death.

stephwashere. Poetry Out Loud-- Difference. Youtube. 13 Feb.2009. 16 Dec. 2010.

Summary:

Stephen Vincent Benét is describing himself.

Important Quotes:
“Difference”

By Stephen Vincent Benét

“My mind’s a map. A mad sea-captain drew it
Under a flowing moon until he knew it;
Winds with brass trumpets, puffy-cheeked as jugs,
And states bright-patterned like Arabian rugs.
“Here there be tygers.” “Here we buried Jim.”
Here is the strait where eyeless fishes swim
About their buried idol, drowned so cold
He weeps away his eyes in salt and gold.
A country like the dark side of the moon,
A cider-apple country, harsh and boon,
A country savage as a chestnut-rind,
A land of hungry sorcerers.
Your mind?
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—Your mind is water through an April night,

A cherry-branch, plume-feathery with its white,
A lavender as fragrant as your words,
A room where Peace and Honor talk like birds,
Sewing bright coins upon the tragic cloth
Of heavy Fate, and Mockery, like a moth,
Flutters and beats about those lovely things.
You are the soul, enchanted with its wings,
The single voice that raises up the dead
To shake the pride of angels.
I have said.”

Purpose:

Meursault’s mind is a map because he doesn’t know what he is doing. When he shoots the Arab
man at the beach, he wasn’t thinking anything. He was too hot and he could not control his
actions. “The scorching blade slashed at my eyelashes and stabbed at my stinging eyes. That’s
when everything began to reel. The sea carried up a thick, fiery breath. It seemed to me as if the
sky split open from one end to the other to rain down fire. My whole being tensed and I squeezed
my hand around the revolver. The trigger gave; I felt the smooth underside of the butt; and there,
in that noise, sharp and deafening at the same time, is where it all started. I shook off the sweat
and sun. I knew that I had a shattered the harmony of the day, the exceptional silence of a beach
where I’d been happy . Then I fired four more times at the motionless body where the bullets
lodged without leaving a trace. And it was like knocking four quick times on the door of
unhappiness” (Camus 59). In jail all he had was his thoughts and nobody else.
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