Browse all BookRags Book Notes. Copyrights The Stranger from BookRags. All rights reserved. Toggle navigation. Sign Up. Sign In. Get The Stranger from Amazon. View the Study Pack. View the Lesson Plans. Table of Contents. Plot Summary. Major Characters. Topic Tracking: Death. Topic Tracking: Detachment. Topic Tracking: Observation. Part 1, Chapter 1. Part 1, Chapter 2. Part 1, Chapter 3. Part 1, Chapter 4. Part 1, Chapter 5. Part 1, Chapter 6. Part 2, Chapter 1. Part 2, Chapter 2. Part 2, Chapter 3.
Part 2, Chapter 4. Part 2, Chapter 5. This section contains words approx. Print Word PDF. The Stranger Major Characters Monsieur Meursault: Meursault, the central character in the novel, is a young Frenchman, who commits murder and contemplates life while on trial. More summaries and resources for teaching or studying The Stranger. The Stranger from BookRags. Consequently, society brands him an outsider. Read an in-depth analysis of Meursault.
Marie is young and high-spirited, and delights in swimming and the outdoors. Even when Meursault expresses indifference toward marrying her, she still wants to be his wife, and she tries to support him during his arrest and trial.
Read an in-depth analysis of Marie Cardona. Raymond seems to be using Meursault, whom he can easily convince to help him in his schemes. However, that Raymond tries to help Meursault with his testimony during the trial shows that Raymond does possess some capacity for loyalty. Read an in-depth analysis of Raymond Sintes. Meursault identifies with his mother and believes that she shared many of his attitudes about life, including a love of nature and the capacity to become accustomed to virtually any situation or occurrence.
Most important, Meursault decides that, toward the end of her life, his mother must have embraced a meaningless universe and lived for the moment, just as he does. After Meursault is found guilty of premeditated murder and sentenced to death, he repeatedly refuses to see the chaplain.
If, in fact, someone mistakenly believed that Meursault's behavior was that of a mourner, he was mistaken; Meursault, during those long hours, was not in mourning; he was uncomfortable and embarrassed. He was mourning only in the sense that he was wasting the day and that he had to endure the lengthy and boring ordeal. Marie's mood this Sunday morning is in direct contrast with Meursault's; she is happy and laughing; Meursault comments that she looks quite ravishing.
This day, as we will discover, is Meursault's last day of physical freedom, his last day to enjoy swimming and sunning and being with Marie, and Camus has already prepared us for this most unusual and fateful day by blackening Meursault's waking mood and accentuating it with the brightness of Marie's gaiety.
After knocking on Raymond's door, letting him know that they are ready to leave, Meursault and Marie go on down the street, but, again, Camus has Meursault remind us that he feels "rather under the weather. It is extraordinary that Meursault feels particularly bad, most unusual for someone who was eagerly anticipating this bit of a holiday.
This day was looked forward to, providing Meursault a chance to get away to the beach and do some swimming and sunning with Marie. Moments later, Meursault describes himself as not only feeling rather ill, physically, but as if he were struck down, smashed by the glare of the morning sun. Camus is presenting us here with more irony, for if there is anything that Meursault loves, it is the sun.
The sun, indeed, has already become almost a character in this novel; we have seen Meursault's delight in its warmth. Today, however, it is too strong and too powerful for him. It hits him in the eyes "like a clenched fist. To her, the day is glorious.
She keeps repeating, "What a heavenly day! There is a constant negative-positive counterpoint in this chapter as it builds slowly and tensely toward its climax. Like Marie, Raymond is in high spirits, addressing Marie in mock graciousness as "Mademoiselle"; he is wearing sports clothes that Meursault finds unattractive and is also wearing a straw hat that makes Marie giggle. In addition, he is wearing a short-sleeved shirt that exposes his rather hairy, white forearms.
Meursault is truly in a bad mood to make note of such inconsequential matters. After commenting on Raymond's outing clothes, Meursault partially explains his feeling of depression.
He tells us that the previous evening he had gone to the police station and had testified that Raymond's explanation about beating the Arab girl because of her infidelity was true. The police chose to believe Meursault and, as a result, released Raymond with merely a warning. Meursault says, "They didn't check my statement. Meursault does not know if the girl was actually unfaithful to Raymond; he is indifferent to whether or not she had sex with someone else.
He simply had no objection to writing a "real stinker" of a letter for Raymond and testifying that Raymond's reason for the brawl was due to infidelity. Meursault, Camus is stressing, has lied, which is unusual for a man who refuses to lie about his own feelings and actions.
He, therefore, is not the one-dimensional victim of this novel, as he is sometimes characterized, nor is he a martyr who has done no wrong other than shedding no tears at his mother's funeral and yet is guillotined. The action quickens even before the trio board the bus, for Raymond points out to Meursault that some Arabs are watching them.
Meursault sees them and says that the Arabs looked at them as though they were blocks of stone or dead trees. Raymond even knows which Arab is the brother of the girl whom he abused. Raymond's moods fluctuate, at this point. He is, at least to Meursault, seemingly worried, yet he laughs and says that the brawl is "ancient history," but halfway to the bus stop, he glances back for reassurance that the Arabs are not following them.
He does this as a man, fearful of death, might look toward the sky for buzzards circling overhead. On the bus, Raymond's nervousness becomes flirtatious; he "kept making jokes," Meursault says, in order to amuse Marie, although she seemed unaware of him, nodding at Meursault every now and then and smiling at him. There is a tenseness at this point; we wait for something to happen as they journey toward the beach, the scene of the murder.
The three have left the city and are alone as they walk toward the beach; they are far removed from even the Sunday business of Algiers. Wild lilies are snow-white against the sky, which Meursault describes as being so blue that it has a "metallic glint.
The landscape is described here in portent fragments. As Marie innocently destroys the flowers, Meursault notes that some of the houses are "half-hidden," and that others are "naked from the stony plateau. After meeting Raymond's friend, Masson, and his wife, Meursault notices Marie chatting with Masson's wife, laughing, and he tells us that, for the first time, he "seriously" considers the possibility of his marrying her.
Remember that he promised her that he would marry her earlier. Now, he "considers" the "possibility" of marrying her. Meursault promised that he would marry Marie, meaning that, for him, at that moment, he "had no objection. Meursault is happy, at this present moment, on the beach. He basks in the sunlight and feels better. The sun, in fact, is a restorative to Meursault, as it usually is. We have heard him speak of it often, and we have seen how he reacts to it and to his memories of Paris and its lack of sun.
Swimming makes Meursault presently feel even better, particularly the physical contact of his body against the cold water beneath him and the hot sun above him, when his arms and shoulders emerge.
There is much emphasis here on this series of present moments, as Meursault and Marie swim, side by side, in rhythm, matching their movements, enjoying, as Meursault says, "every moment.
Meursault eventually becomes so completely relaxed that, after swimming back to the beach and drying in the warmth of the sun and Marie's body, he naps for a short time. Then he rouses at Marie's insistence and the two swim for a while longer, twining around one another. Meursault is so physically satisfied that his senses tingle. He is "ravenously" hungry for lunch and eats much bread and fish and steak and potato chips.
Masson, the host, enjoys Raymond's friend and is quick to refill Meursault's wine glass whenever it is empty. By the time that coffee is being poured, Meursault describes himself as feeling "slightly muzzy," and he starts smoking one cigarette after another. The two couples and Raymond feel deep, empathetic rapport as they discuss spending the entire month of August on the beach together, sharing expenses.
One might think that after Meursault and his friends have spent time on the bus to the beach, swimming, napping, lunching, and discussing plans to summer in the bungalow during August, it must be mid-afternoon by now. It is not: Marie announces that it is only half-past eleven, which causes her to laugh again.
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