The Gentle Indifference

Meursault discovers, during his trial for the random murder of the nameless Arab, that the key to living happily is to accept one's fate and inevitable death. During Meursault's epiphany at the end of The Stranger, he says, "As if that blink rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world." (pg. 122) Meursault's rage rids him of any hope that he will survive - he has resigned himself to the guillotine. Only after he gives up this hope that he won't die, which represents the hopes all humans have that they might somehow avoid suffering and death (the only certain things in Camus' existentialist theory), can he find happiness. What he discovers, in essence, is that only through realizing that we have no power over our fates can we be content with the world, for the more we struggle against death the more unhappy we become.