Detachment in The Stranger
Meursault in The Stranger is one of the weirdest protagonists
we've read about (other than Gregor) so far and that is mostly due to
Meursault's lack of emotion in all situations. If the book was written
in third person, then the lack of emotion would seem a bit more
plausible, but Camus writes the book in first person, a point of view
that is supposed to give us the most insight of the protagonist, yet all
we get from Meursault are his physical reactions to various stimuli in
the world. The only "emotion" we get from his is detachment as can be
seen in various situations like at his mother's funeral, when he kills
the Arab, etc.
Maybe the reason for this detachment is because of Meursault's attempt to conform to his own interpretation of society. Meursault's interpretation and maybe even Camus's is that detachment is a symptom of the modern world and that everyone who lives in it, practices it. Throughout the story, character's are introduced without a name and are seemingly only there to fill their role. For example, the Arab is never given a name, despite him being murdered by Meursault, he is only mentioned to fulfill his role: the person killed by Meursault. Another example is the nursery home's director and the old ladies crying by the casket; they are just there in the scenery and the only thing that we know about them is how they make Meursault feel guilty. We are super detached to the director, Arabs, the judge, the priest because they are just people doing their role without Meursault offering anything else because he frankly just doesn't care about them, an effect from the way society works.
The thing is is that although Meursault's detachment makes him seem like a bad person, people do it everyday in the real world, it's just that Meursault takes it to an extreme in an attempt to copy it. Everyday we pass by tons of people who we don't give a lick of care. It might be walking down campus or buying something from McDonalds, we don't care much about the homeless person sitting outside, we don't care about the worker at the cash register, we don't care about the UofI student waiting at the crosswalk. This sort of detachment to the world is normal and just a symptom of modern society.
Maybe the reason for this detachment is because of Meursault's attempt to conform to his own interpretation of society. Meursault's interpretation and maybe even Camus's is that detachment is a symptom of the modern world and that everyone who lives in it, practices it. Throughout the story, character's are introduced without a name and are seemingly only there to fill their role. For example, the Arab is never given a name, despite him being murdered by Meursault, he is only mentioned to fulfill his role: the person killed by Meursault. Another example is the nursery home's director and the old ladies crying by the casket; they are just there in the scenery and the only thing that we know about them is how they make Meursault feel guilty. We are super detached to the director, Arabs, the judge, the priest because they are just people doing their role without Meursault offering anything else because he frankly just doesn't care about them, an effect from the way society works.
The thing is is that although Meursault's detachment makes him seem like a bad person, people do it everyday in the real world, it's just that Meursault takes it to an extreme in an attempt to copy it. Everyday we pass by tons of people who we don't give a lick of care. It might be walking down campus or buying something from McDonalds, we don't care much about the homeless person sitting outside, we don't care about the worker at the cash register, we don't care about the UofI student waiting at the crosswalk. This sort of detachment to the world is normal and just a symptom of modern society.
This is a very interesting way of looking at Meursault’s lack of emotion and connecting it to our society. Almost the entire book emphasizes how Meursault doesn’t fit in society and is being scrutinized under the judgement of the court. Yet when you take a step back, you realize that most of our society today doesn’t care and would describe things just as Meursault did. As you mention, Meursault is an example of an extreme case (going so far as to not display any emotion) but if we look at Meursault’s life before he killed the Arab, Meursault was living the life of a typical person of his character. He had friends, had a job, and had a girlfriend. It wasn’t until after the murder that more people took notice of his peculiarities.
ReplyDeleteI think everybody displays a certain degree of emotion, and cares about a variety of things. For most people, they tend to react with emotion regarding other people and other "important" things, since most people are able to display empathy and sympathy. Meursault's emotion is largely focused on the physical realm of the world, and it seems that he cares most about physical pleasure and comfort instead of intangible experiences. So yes, I agree that detachment is a trait not necessarily unique to Meursault; it's just that his mentality is so different from anyone else's.
ReplyDeleteI hadn't thought about the first-person insight. That's a really good point. Even Gregor Samsa, who is narrated in the 3rd person, gets some free indirect discourse. Mersault doesn't get any discourse at all, even in his own head.
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, I like how you say he suits "his interpretation of society" and maybe not society as it really is. We all react to what we think we see in the world. What's that quote about how if you look for evil you'll only see evil?
I hadn't thought about Meursault's first-person narration in comparison with a hypothetical third-person version of the story before--he might come across as a lot more strange and incomprehensible if an "objective" narrator were recounting his behavior. (Almost like the version we get in court, when his behavior and actions are detailed but with no first-hand sense of what he's feeling at the time.) In a way, Meursault almost narrates his first-hand experience *as if* he were a third-person narrator--he takes a detached perspective on his own experience. This is a neat way to characterize the hard-to-describe Meursault vibe that his voice produces--it's as if he sees his own experience as if it were second-hand.
ReplyDelete