The Stranger By Albert Camus Theme Essay

As humans, we generally seek other entities to make ourselves complete, or 'fulfilled'. What is sought after varies from the individual, as some seek money, others fame, yet most people seek companionship. The Stranger by Albert Camus challenges this commonplace ideology that humans need emotion based relationships for completeness. Through the character Meursault and his exchanges with others, over encompassing themes such as the importance of emotions, and relevance of human life are challenged; whereas the counter argument of significance of the physical world is brought up.
The first link readers are introduced to is between Meursault and Maman. Firstly, the death of his mother is announced as a simple occurrence that could happen on any other day, and there would still be little significance. Moreover, when Meursault is attending the funeral, more attention is paid to details of the casket than any attached emotions Meursault held for his mother. "blood spilling over Maman's casket...and my joy...when I knew I was going to bed and sleep for twelve hours." [18] The priorities Meursault's attention span has is early foreshadowing of the theme of the book; if the main character of a novel is more concerned about a casket than the absence of his reason for existence, the
During the court trial, Meursault represents the ideologies of voidness in life, whereas the rest of the courtroom is society. The people of the court saw Meursault as a danger not only because of his actions, but also his absence of emotion, which is an odd case in an emotion based society. Because Meursault is an underwhelming minority, the case is made that Meursault has no morals and is an outcast to society. This alienation shows that society is afraid, or unready for Meursault's level of enlightenment. "He stated I had no place in society whose most fundamental rules I