Character Analysis of Therese and Meursault from Zola's Therese Raquin and Camus' The Outsider
How do the characters of Therese, Laurent and Meursault change after they have committed their respective murders?
The protagonists in both the novels “Therese Raquin” by Emile Zola, and “The Outsider” by Albert Camus, ultimately commit murder. This is the turning point in both cases, and the way in which their various characters change because of this will be analysed and compared.
In Therese Raquin, after the murder of Camille, both Therese and Laurent react at first with shock, Therese flying into fits of hysterics and Laurent with a rationality that seems to be his coping mechanism at first. However, as time passes, it seems as though the characters begin to relax again, although Zola foreshadows upheaval to come: “it was changing them, for a hidden process had taken place within them”. The first indication of this is their loss of passion; “love had lost its appeal, their appetite had disappeared... the touching of their skin made them feel slightly queasy”. Their decision to get married brings up tortuous nightmares in L, as he imagines the corpse of Camille in the place of Therese’s body. This is the very beginning of the agonising torment that the two characters suffer as a result of the memory, perhaps even the guilt, of their crime. “Therese too had been visited by the ghost of Camille during that feverish night”. These imaginings and hallucinations, at times becoming palpable visions that convince them of the dead man’s existence, eventually drive the two characters over the brink of insanity. “The lovers’ panic grew worse, and every day their nightmares made them more demented and distraught”, before they even got married. They looked upon their forthcoming wedding as an alleviation to save them from their terrible imaginings.
However, we see just how misguided this expectation is on their wedding night; they feel they are “still separated by a gaping chasm... they dreamed that they had been violently separated and flung in opposite directions”. This
The protagonists in both the novels “Therese Raquin” by Emile Zola, and “The Outsider” by Albert Camus, ultimately commit murder. This is the turning point in both cases, and the way in which their various characters change because of this will be analysed and compared.
In Therese Raquin, after the murder of Camille, both Therese and Laurent react at first with shock, Therese flying into fits of hysterics and Laurent with a rationality that seems to be his coping mechanism at first. However, as time passes, it seems as though the characters begin to relax again, although Zola foreshadows upheaval to come: “it was changing them, for a hidden process had taken place within them”. The first indication of this is their loss of passion; “love had lost its appeal, their appetite had disappeared... the touching of their skin made them feel slightly queasy”. Their decision to get married brings up tortuous nightmares in L, as he imagines the corpse of Camille in the place of Therese’s body. This is the very beginning of the agonising torment that the two characters suffer as a result of the memory, perhaps even the guilt, of their crime. “Therese too had been visited by the ghost of Camille during that feverish night”. These imaginings and hallucinations, at times becoming palpable visions that convince them of the dead man’s existence, eventually drive the two characters over the brink of insanity. “The lovers’ panic grew worse, and every day their nightmares made them more demented and distraught”, before they even got married. They looked upon their forthcoming wedding as an alleviation to save them from their terrible imaginings.
However, we see just how misguided this expectation is on their wedding night; they feel they are “still separated by a gaping chasm... they dreamed that they had been violently separated and flung in opposite directions”. This