Feb 18 Homework

Part 1 Chapter 6

This chapter has been the most eventful chapter by far. In previous chapters we have seen Meursault live his life like any other human being, but now the novel has gotten a lot more interesting. At the beginning of this chapter, we see that Meursault, Raymond and Marie are going to a beach house, to spend a day in the ocean and relax. Everything is going fine, when the Arabs (the brother of Raymond’s ex-mistress and his friend) start approaching them. Meursault, Raymond, and Masson (Raymond’s friend) go to meet them and end up fighting them. Raymond gets hurt, but it’s just flesh wounds. They decide to encounter the Arabs again, only this time they don’t fight, finally when Raymond, Masson, and the girls go, Meursault decides to stay in the scorching sun. Eventually, he encounters the Arab again, and is threatened by him. Meursault ends up shooting the Arab five times. With this sequence of events we manage to see that the novel has taken a sharp turn. Now Meursault finds himself in the middle of a catastrophic situation. I’m pleased to find that my prediction was accurate.

As I was reading this chapter I managed to see that Meursault was starting to feel more emotions towards Marie or to his general situation. “Together again, Marie and I swam out a ways, and we felt a closeness as we moved in unison and were happy.” (Pg. 50) This closeness that he mentions might be the beginning of love, or some kind of affection. We also see that this has affected what people think of him. “…then out of the blue he [Masson] announced to his wife that he liked me.” (Pg. 51) In another situation, I managed to see that Meursault is starting to show emotion. “Then I fired four more times at the motionless body where the bullets lodged without leaving a trace. And it was like knocking four quick times on the door of unhappiness.” (Pg. 59)

In this chapter we see that Camus has put a great amount of detail to the whole situation. For example: While Meursault walks through the beach, before he kills the Arab, we see repetition. Camus mentions “the sun” several times (Pgs. 57-58). We obtain an image of incredible heat and discomfort. With this description that Camus gives us we can also see foreshadowing “The blazing sand looked red to me now.” (Pg. 53) This quote describes the incredible heat that characterizes this scene, but also the red can stand for the blood of the Arab.