Title page/ novel summary

Javier Rivera

Mr. Whetstone

SSR quarter 1 project

11 - 16 - 2012

Sparknotes

The Stranger by Albert Camus

Summary

            Meursault, the narrator and main character of the novel, is a young man who lives in Algiers. Upon learning of his mother’s death, he takes a bus to go visit her at the old persons’ home where she had been residing. The whole time, as he narrates the entire story, his tone seems very detached, plain, and as if he took no interest in the situation especially when learning of his mother’s death. He shows no sign of grieving which is subtly ironic yet insightful in showing the characteristics of Meursault. Once he arrived to the old person’s home, he declined seeing her body and kept vigil over her coffin that night. After the funeral procession the next morning, Meursault returns, reluctantly, back to Algiers. Meursault goes back to his normal everyday life upon returning to Algiers as if nothing ever happened. He even goes on a date with his girlfriend, Marie, to the beach, the movies, and back home with him to sleep in. After going back to work, and returning home, the book introduces Meursault’s neighbor Raymond Sintes, a women beater and catalyst of the story. Raymond and Meursault become good friends after Raymond confides to Meursault of his cheating mistress. He admits to beating her, but claims that her cheating on him was a “good” enough excuse for doing so. However, it did put him in serious trouble with her brother, but that didn’t matter to him; he just wanted to torture her even more and he needed Meursault’s help for that. He asks Meursault to write a letter so he can lure his mistress in order to devise a plan to torment her even more; Meursault agrees. The plan worked, but Raymond was thrown in jail because the plan consisted of him beating her. Raymond asks Meursault to testify and claim that he beat her out of self-defense; Meursault again agrees to Raymond’s plan and Raymond is let of the hook.

            Later on, Meursault is asked by Marie whether he loved her, to which he responded that he didn’t know, but “probably not”. Despite this fact, she still maintains strong feelings for Meursault and asks him if he wanted to marry her, to which he responded that it didn’t matter to him, so “yes”. As the book continues, Raymond invites Meursault and Marie to his friend’s beach house. Meursault agreed, and they all enjoyed a day of swimming and comfort. Until Raymond realizes that there are two Arabs on that very same beach; one of them being the brother of his mistress. A fight broke out and Raymond was stabbed; luckily it wasn’t serious. However, it did enrage Raymond. He took his gun out and was planning on shooting the Arabs, but Meursault talks him out of it and takes the gun away from him; they then returned to the beach house. Meursault, having a headache, goes to the spring to cool off, he runs into the mistress’ brother. As he has a grip on the gun, approaching the spring, the brother pulls out a knife; Meursault pauses and fires the gun four times, killing the mistress' brother. 

            He was immediately thrown in prison after the murder of the Arab. Many sat, including Marie and Raymond, and watched anxiously how his trial would turn out. At the trial, many people in the courtroom, including his own lawyer, seemed angry at the fact that Meursault showed no remorse or guilt for taking another person’s life.  During the trial they always seem to bring up his emotions including the emotions he had during his mother’s funeral as evidence for the case; in the story he acted normal and did not shed any tears in the entire novel. This was a huge disadvantage to Meursault, because the trial deemed him immoral and a danger to society. He was sentenced to be executed and, at that time, the ideal way of execution was death by beheading. After this, the novel focuses on Meursault’s thoughts as he is awaiting his execution. He is scared at first and even sets up an appeal. However, after opening himself to the gentle “indifference” of the world, he realizes that we are all going to die at one point or another; death is unavoidable, life goes on, and there is no greater meaning. Once accepting this, he feels at ease as he is waiting for his execution to take place.