"...I asked him what the dog had done. He didn't answer. All he said was 'Filthy, stinking bastard!' I could barely see him leaning over his dog, trying to fix something on its collar. I spoke louder. Then, without turning around, he answered with a kind of suppressed rage, 'He's always there'" (Camus, page 28).
As soon as the funeral is over, essentially nothing happens in the first three chapters of "The Stranger." And yet, a whirlwind of odd details and seemingly unimportant, yet puzzling, interactions piece together to form an intriguing illustration.
Possibly the strangest aspect of Camus' snapshot of Meursault's Sunday is the interaction between Salamano and his dog. After Salamano senselessly beats his pet multiple times, Meursault confronts him about it. Salamano's reaction ("'He's always there'") seems contradictory, leaving the reader to wonder about the significance of Salamano's need for dominance. Going forward, will this owner/pet relationship parallel something larger? If so, what is Salamano? And who is his dog?
Salamano and his dog creeped me out, too! Although there are a lot of weird interactions in the book so far, I thought this was the weirdest one of them all. Loved the post :)
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