Last summer, my school assigned us a project in which we had to read some book and provide our own analysis. I considered which book I would read and eventually chose “The Outsider” by Albert Camus since I never read any of his books before. I wrote the following analysis of the book. Enjoy!
The book I chose to read was The Outsider, by Albert Camus. I chose this book partly because the title intrigued me and because I knew that Albert Camus was one of the most renowned writers of the 20th Century. As such, I thought that it would be nice to read one of his works.
Mr. Meursault, the protagonist of the story, is bounded by the expectations and standards of society, standards that are set by his fellow inhabitants. Something that I found fascinating and crucial in this book was the seemingly absurd nature of society. This is a scary thought as we ourselves are members of a society and surely we cannot live in one that behaves absurdly. It would mock our ethics and our standards of living and reduce our courts to playrooms. But that is exactly what The Outsider does, and it reveals just how unproportional and hypocritical our system sometimes becomes. For example, after having committed a criminal act, Mr. Meursault is arrested and is sent to the examining magistrate. When questioning Mr. Meursault leads nowhere, the magistrate breaks out into emotional hysteria over his love for God and God’s benevolence to Mr. Meursault’s criminal soul. When the examining magistrate waved the crucifix at Mr. Meursault during the questioning session, it could have revealed the magistrate’s desire not to convince Mr. Meursault to tell the truth but to confirm his own faith in God, to which he passionately adheres. According to the magistrate, criminals usually cry at the sight of the cross. Mr. Meursault’s lack of emotion at seeing the cross seems unusual, so much so that he refers to him once as “Mr. Antichrist” and says “I have never seen a soul as hardened as yours”(Camus 69), just because he fails to respond correctly. Who says that all people in society must be Christian? The notion that “all men believed in God” is shared by some people, including the magistrate, but surely it cannot be held against Mr. Meursault if he does not conform to a belief that is representative not of society as a whole but of only a certain percentage? This was held against him during the trial when the Public Prosecutor said that “Not once in front of the examining magistrate did he show any emotion with regard to his abominable crime”(Camus 97).
This apparent lack of true justice is seen following the trial when Mr. Meursault wonders how it is possible to judge someone with “true justice” if there are so many factors that can influence our behavior. He says “The fact that the sentence had been read out at eight o’clock rather than five o’clock, and the fact that it might have been completely different, and that it had been decided by men who change their underwear, and that it had been credited to so vague an entity as the French (or German, or Chinese) people, all these things really seemed to detract considerably from the seriousness of such a decision”(Camus 105). Despite the dubious nature of the justice that was supposedly upheld through the sentence, the consequences “became just as certain, just as serious, as the fact that I was lying there flat against that wall”(Camus 105). The absurdity of society can produce dire certainties.
Throughout the book, Mr. Meursault meets people who fall into almost stereotypical categories. For example, there are the religious people, there are the romantics, there are the wealthy, there are the criminals, and there are those who are alone. Each of these people inhabit their own realm of society. Mr. Meursault freely floats from one realm to the other, never falling into a single such category. Instead he is a “man of the world”. He simply acts according to what is convenient and honest. For example, Raymond was considered to be an untrustworthy (and even criminal) figure in Mr. Meursault’s society. This was due to his aggressive behavior. However, since Raymond never attacked Mr. Meursault in any way and even wanted to be his friend, Mr. Meursault saw no reason to reject his offer of friendship. This was held against him during his trial at the end of the book as it further bolstered the argument that he has a cruel soul. In reality, he simply acts according to his own wishes and feelings.
I found Mr. Meursault’s relationship with Marie, his girlfriend, to be fascinating, because although it was a romantic relationship, he did not feel much love towards her. This was seen when he wrote that “A minute later she asked me if I loved her. I told her that it didn’t mean anything but that I didn’t think so”(Camus 38). Instead of loving Marie’s personality, he loved her physical appearance. This is a sensual way of thinking. This sensual way of observing and reacting to the world is a pivotal element of this book, particularly because Camus focused so much on the description of the surrounding environment. The color of the sky, the heat of the sand, and the brutally oppressive glare of the sun were powerful images and feelings that weighed down on Mr. Meursault and the reader. An example of such description was seen while he was walking along the beach alone, prior to committing the criminal act. “I was walking slowly towards the rocks and I could feel my forehead swelling up under the sun. The heat was pushing full against me as I tried to walk. And every time I felt the blast of its hot breath on my face…”(Camus 58). The sun shows little mercy to Mr. Meursault, just as society itself shows him little mercy. And yet, like the sun, Mr. Meursault himself is indifferent to the standards and ethics of society, to the inner workings of what he later calls a “mechanism”.
It is evident that Camus strove to reveal the inner hypocrisies and injustices within our society through this book. He makes it clear that although we have courts of justice and standards to which we must adhere, we are all prisoners of our world and of our society. Whether society condemned Mr. Meursault or not, it made no difference. Our reality remains brutally indifferent, like the burning sun, throughout our lives. And, in the end, Mr. Meursault’s acceptance of this indifference empowered him. This book was not written to offer a solution to the problems it discusses. Perhaps it is up to us, the readers, to reflect on the tragedy of Mr. Meursault’s death and picture ourselves as the victims of an indifferent and wholly judgmental society.
