THE STRANGER #2

Life as an existentialist can be full of gaps. In Meursault’s case, this is one of the things that are very present during the novel. You see, as an existentialist, he just lets things in life pass him by and just doesn’t take any feeling, moment, or situation in, precisely because like he says, there is no reason for him to do so, making his life, after analyzing it really deeply, so much more meaningful than what it looks like from a simple overview of the story.

 One of the main, and most important examples of these gaps or things unsaid, is the way Meursault talks about his mother. The beginning of the book is about her, and her death, which makes the readers see right away how much he ignores her. And we also see that as things start happening to him, his Maman seems to appear everywhere he goes. And even though he says in many occasions that he doesn’t really care, and that he sees her death as a natural and pointless thing to mourn for, he gives us readers certain clues that suggest otherwise.   I say this taking reference on page 65, where Meursault is being asked by his lawyer whether he felt any sort of sadness during the day of Maman’s funeral. “The question caught me by surprise and it seemed to me that I would have been very embarrassed if I’d had to ask it. Nevertheless I answered that I had pretty much lost the habit of analyzing myself and that it was hard for me to tell him what he wanted to know. I probably did love Maman, but that didn’t mean anything.”

For a person that just reads this quote, it’s very probable that the person will think of Meursault as insensitive cold hearted or greedy. But when I looked over the quote and truly analyzed what it might have meant, I understood a little more of this man’s way of being, I know that there is definitely a story behind that part of the novel. I saw there must be some gap that actually has a meaning to him, and that for some reason he is not revealing it, not even to the readers. So this is where someone like me, that actually believes that everything has a meaning, and that there are no coincidences, comes in and makes up a big melodramatic story of Meursault and his mom, loving each other without a care in the world, but after years of hard work she is getting old and his job’s salary is not enough to keep her satisfied, so they slowly start losing topics to talk about, and after a while, all they talk about are complaints about one another, they split apart. And as an act for care and compassion he puts her in a home, because what he earns is not enough to give her what she deserves. To support this absolutely fairytale-like story, I have this part of the quote as support. ‘…it was hard for me to tell him what he wanted to know…” the thing is, he doesn’t say why. He just sates the fact that it is hard for him to share that part of his past, and I can see as a reader that it brings him pain to think about it.

And that is the amazing thing about the novel. Camus leaves things unsaid, little mysteries so that the reader is forced to think more about these little stories, create things inside their heads, and that way making the process of reading the novel so much more meaningful for the reader.