Literature Analysis

The Stranger 

- Albert Camus

1. Summary: The novel begins with the main character, Meursault's mother dying, and he has to go to her funeral. He returns to Algiers and goes on a date with a Marie, who is his co-worker. Meursault then runs into his neighbor, Raymond, and they have dinner. Raymond tells Meursault that his girlfriend when he found out she was cheating on him. He said that her brother and him fought over it. Meursault is asked to help Raymond get his girlfriend back by writing her a letter. Raymond then gets arrested for beating his girlfriend, and Meursault has to speak on his behalf. While at the beach, Raymond, Meursault and Marie see his girlfriends brother, and they fight again and this time Raymond gets badly wounded by a stabbing. .Raymond, furious, wants to shoot her brother but Meursault calms him down. Later on however, Meursault ends up shooting her brother and kills him. Meursault is arrested and imprisoned. He is then encouraged to turn his life around and accept God into his life. Meursault actually grows ti like his life in prison, and realizes that there is no real meaning to life anyways. He seems depressed, however and spends most of his time lying around and sleeping. The judge finds him guilty of the crime and is not impressed with meursaults morals. He is then sentenced with the death penalty of being beheaded. The novel ends with Meursault accepting that his life had no reasoning or meaning, and he dies with that comforting him. 

2. Theme: The sooner you accept that life has no meaning, the happier you will be. You cannot dig to deep under the surface of life. 

3. The author's tone is mundane, depressing, and carefree.

 For example, "Mother died today. Or, maybe, yesterday; I can't be sure."

"It seemed to me that the idea behind it was still further to exclude me from the case, to put me off the map... by substituting the lawyer for myself."

"Anyway, it hardly mattered; I already felt worlds away from this courtroom and its tedious 'proceedings.'"

4. Five literary elements/techniques: characterization, syntax, foreshadowing, understatements, and the overall message. 

The theme was portrayed by the characters personalities of being so carefree and nonchalant.  "And so, with that crisp, whip crack sound, it all began. I shook off my sweat and the clinging veil of light. I knew I'd shattered the balance of the day, the spacious calm of this beach on which I had been happy. But I fired four shots more into the inert body, on which they left no visible traces. And each successive shot was another loud, fateful rap on the door of my undoing."

The choice of words that were used by the author created a character with little structure that helped me realize that they were little meaning to what they said. It was more about their actions. "When leaving, I very nearly held out my hand and said, 'Good-by'; just in time I remembered that I'd killed a man."

"I caught myself thinking what an agreeable walk I could have had, if it hadn't been for Mother." Also, "Now, in the full glare of the morning sun, with everything shimmering in the heat haze, there was something inhuman, discouraging, about this landscape."

In the beginning when Meursault's mother dies, it made me appreciate what I jadm and also how little attention he gave that subject. He didn't mention it much, and  I think he shot Raymond's enemy because he was angry and did not know how to deal with his problems correctly.