Albert Camus' The Stranger: A tale of an absurd man

Out of a monotonous systematic life, Albert Camus (1913-1960), in The Myth of Sisyphus (1942)states that a "weariness" emerges along with a longing to question the essence of the mechanicality of human life; and with the feeling of anxiety derived from the discontent of living a mechanical life, a realisation is aroused that makes a person conscious of "suicide [as the mechanicality of life is ineluctable] or recovery [to become god of one's own life]." Likewise, Monsieur Meursault, in Camus' The Stranger (1942), seems unhappy whenever his free time is being occupied or his vacationing is being interrupted.

For example, Meursault has not visited his mother's place that much, because it takes up his Sunday; the day he kills the Arab, he has wished to escape the sunlight and the strain finding a shady place to take some rest. However, with time, Meursault loses his control, and, as the Arab gets closer with a knife, as well as the sunlight irritates him continuously, he kills the Arab.

As far as free time is concerned, Meursault has an uncompromising attitude towards it; this could be interpreted like that he may not be happy with his working life: for example, when he has been offered by his boss an opportunity to work in Paris, he seems apathetic and unmoved by the offer, and he deliberately refuses. Is this because Meursault has already accepted that nothing could be more meaningful than that of living a life, or whether it is in Algiers or Paris, nothing would change his mundane Monday to Friday life, the monotonous systematic life?

Though Camus prefers suicide over philosophical suicide, he does not support suicide because the absurd ceases to exist with a voluntary death. Rejecting death is not a characteristic of an absurd man; an absurd man rejects suicide and accepts that "the man [is] condemned to death." Meursault, being an absurd hero, accepts death as a part of day-to-day happenings and remains indifferent towards death because he is conscious of the inevitability of it.

Meursault is apathetic towards the death of his mother, Madam Meursault, as well ascareless about it as far as his mother's death and the burial formalities are concerned. This is absurd (the word absurd is used as a noun), because, for an absurd man, for example, Meursault, a death, and a dead body signify nothing. Significantly, Meursault is indifferent towards his death as well because he knows it signifies nothing, as he asserts, "Then, in the dark hour before dawn, sirens blasted.

They were announcing departures for a world that [deaths] now and forever meant nothing to me." This is because only the desire to live--to keep the absurd alive--makes sense to Meursault, overwise he would not say: "So close to death, Maman must have felt free then and ready to live it all again. Nobody, nobody had the right to cry over her."

The conversation between Meursault and the chaplain is notable before associating the characteristics of an absurd man with him. Having no belief in God, Meursault has refused to see the chaplain.

But the chaplain voluntarily pays a visit and tries to help Meursault eternally through presenting his argument. The chaplain, in response to Meursault's stand on God, says, "sometimes we think we're sure when in fact we're not." In response Meursault says, he may not be sure about what interests him, but he is sure about the opposite.

This particular response of Meursault isevidence that justifies his consciousness, the absurd freedom, about the things he has clear ideas, he cannot contradict those, and in Camus words, "What I know, what is certain, what I cannot deny, what I cannot reject - this is what counts." And the subject, I, represents an absurd man. For example, Meursault.

According to Camus, an absurd man does not have any consciousness beyond his senses, and Meursault negates to surrender himself to some inexperienced supernatural entity because that would be a kind of philosophical suicide. Besides, to surrender oneself to some inexperienced supernatural entity is to become conscious of the eternal that is uncharacteristic of an absurd man.

An absurd man, being conscious of his meaningless, futureless condition, is unconscious of social scrutiny. For example, Meursault, during trial-session, is less concerned about the trial; he is more conscious of the uncomfortable temperature inside the courtroom.

He also says, "I got bored very quickly with the prosecutor's speech. Only bits and pieces-a gesture or a long but isolated tirade-caught my attention or aroused my interest." These few lines rationalise Meursault's indifference towards social judgment and his unwillingness to justify himself against the stand of the court also explains the absurd, the irrationality of collective consciousness in front of a unique consciousness.

David Carroll writes, Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus (1942) suggests that "I experience the feeling of the Absurd, therefore I am." Similarly, it could be said that Meursault has experienced the feeling of the absurd thus he is one. Camus, as well, writes, "[t]he feeling of the absurd is not, for all that, the notion of the absurd." How are the feeling and the notion of absurd different?

This particular excerpt is vital to answer this question, "The absurd does not liberate; it binds. It does not authorize all actions. Everything is permitted does not mean that nothing is forbidden. The absurd merely confersan equivalence on the consequences of those actions. It does not recommend crime, for this would be childish, but it restores to remorse its futility." Evaluating the murder of the Arab by Meursault is going to clarify the distinction between the feeling and the notion of the absurd.

This quoted extract justifies that the philosophy of the existential absurdism does not advocate crime: this is an example of the notion of the absurd that does not change its form; it is, in a sense, a theoretical proposal. But the feeling of the absurd is mainly an action-based situation or a day-to-day life situation that may arouse in a person as an outcome of a consciousness being influenced by the social, cultural surroundings, and by oneself as well.

For example, Meursault's act of killing the Arab is, in a sense, an outcome of his feeling of absurd, as well as, his indifferentness towards his mother's and his death have resulted from the feeling of the absurd. Lastly, the notion of the absurd results from the feeling of absurd, because "the Absurd is not in man … nor in the world, but in their presence together."

Muhammad Kamruzzamann is a
student, MAPW, Department of English, Jahangirnagar University