Meursault - The Anti-Hero Protagonist Essay - 1730 Words

Life is often interpreted by many as having meaning or purpose. For people who are like Meursault, the anti-hero protagonist of Albert Camus The Stranger, written in 1942, the world is completely without either. Camus story explores the world through the eyes of Meursault, who is quite literally a stranger to society in his indifference to meaning, values, and morals. In this novel, this protagonist lives on through life with this indifference, and is prosecuted and sentenced to die for it. Through Meursault and his ventures in The Stranger, Camus expresses to the reader the idea that the world is fundamentally absurd, but that people will react to absurdity by attaching meaning to it in vain, despite the fact that the world, like†¦show more content†¦At one point, he declines a job offer to go to Paris. Despite the fact that hed be able to leave colonial Algeria for Paris, which would seem like a good life choice for many, he doesnt care for the offer. Meursault said that â€Å"people never change their lives, that in any case one life was as good as another and that [he] wasnt dissatisfied with [his] here at all† (41). Meursault shows himself not only be indifferent to things or people around him, but that hes also indifferent to his future as everything is the same to him. In his relationship with Marie, Meursault was indifferent to the idea of getting married to her. When asked about marriage and if he really loved Marie, he responded that â€Å"it didnt mean anything but that [he] probably didnt love her . . . that it didnt really matter and that if she wanted to, [they] could get married† (ibid). Here he was, saying that he didnt care if he got married. By doing this, he discarded his own ability to decide his future, and instead put it in the hands of someone else. In this respect, Meursault is also like the world, in that his future is decided by others, but unlike the world, Meursault has the ability to decide his fut ure, but never takes the chance, because, like the world, he doesnt care. Because Meursault doesnt care to attachShow MoreRelatedMiscommunication Causes Serious Consequences Leading to Alienation and Discrimination Within a Society1202 Words   |  5 Pagesworlds reach. Meursault, the protagonist in The Stranger, encounters a dilemma different than the anti-hero, Gregor Samsa, from The Metamorphosis does. As the main character transforms from a human being into a dung beetle or vermin, it brings forth the question of physical versus emotional transformation. Although Gregors metamorphosis helps him discover his status in the household, it disconnects his family from his support. On the other hand, the anti-hero in The Stranger, Meursault, lives hisRead MoreExistentialism And The Absurd By Albert Camus1186 Words   |  5 Pagesthis notion of the absurd through his characters Caligula, Sisyphus, Meursault and others in works such as Caligula, The Myth of Sisyphus, and The Stranger (Simpson). Camus’ novel The Stranger is one of his most well-known works. It is one that almost wholly embodies the idea of the absurd. The protagonist (anti hero) of the novel is Meursault: the â€Å"stranger within his own society.† Throughout his life in the novel, Meursault makes decisions that are apparently meaningless to the reader and charactersRead MoreThe Absurdity Of Existence Of The Book The Metamorphosis By Franz Kafka And The Stranger 1732 Words   |  7 Pagesmany elements present in both stories, such as the themes of alienation and of the anti-hero, but the one that is strongest is absurdity as the situations faced by the protagonists serve as an example of the spiritual dilemma of the world in which individuals must establish a meaning to their rather pointless and unreasonable existence in an absurd life. When the individual is detested in society, as is Meursault in The Stranger, it can be difficult to live an enjoyable life and accepting deathRead MoreMeursault Justifies Murder1107 Words   |  5 PagesThe emotionless anti-hero, Monsieur Meursault, embarks on a distinct philosophical journey through The Stranger. Confident in his ideas about the world, Meursault is an unemotional protagonist who survives without expectations or even aspirations. Because of his constant indifference and lack of opinions about the world, it can be denoted that he undergoes a psychological detachment from the world and society. It is through these characteristics that exist in Meursault that Camus expresses the absurdRead MoreA Outsider Of The Stranger By Andre Gide And Albert Camus1850 Words   |  8 Pagesdeep ties to France’s African territories and strong anti-establishment tendencies who sought to cast off the burdens society foisted upon them. Yet their as best evidenced by their respect ive best-known texts, Gide’s L Immoraliste (The Immoralist) and Camus’ L’Étranger (The Stranger). While both novels center around aloof young men hostile to the norms that society foists upon them, their stories are far from similar. Michel, the protagonist of The Immoralist, is a well educated, thrill-seekingRead MoreResolving The Dilemma Of The Absurd2309 Words   |  10 Pagesresolve this dissonance? In The Stranger, Camus addresses this question by developing the character of Meursault, the novel’s narrator and protagonist (and, one could argue, anti-hero) who is sentenced to execution for killing another man. At the start of the novel, Meursault merely feels indifferent about his bland existence and the people and events around him. As the story progresses, however, Meursault transforms into a man who understands the source of that indifference and who is able to not onlyRead MoreAlienation in Arun Joshi ´s The Foreigner Essay examples1368 Wor ds   |  6 Pagesdelineating different aspects in Joshi’s novel â€Å"The Foreigner†. R.S Pathak has expressed this in the following lines â€Å"Alienation is one of the greatest problems confronting modern man. Its corrosive impact can be seen in the form of generation gap, the anti war movement, the hippie phenomenon, the credibility gap†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦and so on. â€Å" (1) ‘ â€Å"The Foreigner† is the study of Sindi Oberoi’s character which is not a study of individual but it is a representation of the suffering of whole modern mankindRead MoreThe Sonnet Form: William Shakespeare6305 Words   |  26 Pages Some writers, such as William Blake and William Butler Yeats, have invented their own myths. Myths are similar, but not equivalent, to legends (see above). Noir: A fiction genre, popularized in the 1940s, with a cynical, disillusioned, loner protagonist. Noir often involves crime or the criminal underworld. The term stems from â€Å"film noir,† which describes films of similar style and content. Classic examples of noir fiction include Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep and Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese