The Stranger- Meursault's Characterization

     At the beginning of this novel, many of us observed Meursault to be a bland, inactive main character who sort of let things happen to him. His separation from traditional thought was established in the funeral scenes where his way of mourning was overtaken by physical heat and discomfort over emotional. This continued with his indifference towards getting married to Marie, choosing a side in Raymond's conflict, and knowing about abuse by both of his neighbors. To me, his positions are not necessarily neutral no matter how convicted Meursault is of this because after the funeral, many of the escalated events could have been prevented by him.

    Camus takes a twist in his writing at the end of part one where Meursault commits murder, and it is unclear whether it was even an accident. I no longer started to believe that Meursault would face some sort of growth but rather dig himself deeper into trouble as past events have shown. As soon as his court case started I couldn't help but be reminded of documentaries and docuseries about unique murder cases. A lot of these cases in real-life feature someone who is clinically a psychopath or sociopath and does not feel remorse for their actions on others. This made my own reaction to Meursaults continued thoughts change- I started thinking of him in such a way that he did not consciously choose to become nihilistic or "not care" but the anatomy of his brain is just like that. I don't know if Camus was trying to portray a philosophy on life over the complexities of a character with a mental disorder but possibly because of my own interests, I think of this story as more the latter. It's like stepping into the shoes of someone with a completely different thought process, bringing perspective to why certain people are socially outcast or, "the stranger." I am also not trying to sympathize with murderers lol I am certainly not on Meursault's side, only curious, but I think understanding scientific cognitive differences in people that do bad things is important to apply in life.