Homework Feb 11 2008

Part 1 Chapter 1

The Stranger by Albert Camus starts out with a seemingly tragic occurrence, the death of the main character’s mother. “Maman died today.” (pg. 3) Based upon the general feeling of the main character towards this event, I understood that Monsieur Mersault (the main character) doesn’t care much about his mother. He portrays a sense of indifference towards this event and everything around it. The rest of this chapter explains the funeral as well as some aspects of Mersault’s life.

Part 1 Chapter 2

In this chapter, Mersault’s indifference is emphasized by the lack of emotion that he manages to express. While reading this “fragment” it seemed as if a little kid was telling me a story; I didn’t seem to connect in any way with Mersault since the story he tells doesn’t appear to have a meaning. As for what the chapter is about, it begins with Monsieur Mersault wanting to go for a swim. He bumps into a girl he used to work with and spends the rest of the day with her. Some of the events included going to the movies and sleeping together. The next day Mersault spends the day looking out of his window to the street below. The chapter ends with him going to sleep alone.

I would say that a really important quote for character development appears in this chapter. “It occurred to me that anyway one more Sunday was over, that Maman was buried now, that I was going back to work, and that, really nothing had changed.” (pg. 24) This quote manages to show the extent of Mersault ‘s indifference. I would say that this behavior is not normal, the lack of feeling or emotion puzzles me; it’s not a characteristic that you can find in other characters of other works.