Right at the start of the novel The Stranger, I found the narrator Monsieur Meursault a bit (dare I say) strange. The novel began by saying, "Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don't know. I got a telegram from the home: 'Mother deceased. Funeral tomorrow. Faithfully yours.' That doesn't mean anything. Maybe it was yesterday" (page 3).
I found it odd that when Monsieur Meursault received news of his mother's death, he was only concerned with when his mother died, not with the fact that his mother died. My initial thought was that Monsieur Meursault was heartless but as I read on, I realized he was not.
It is not that Monsieur Meursault is heartless, he is not happy his mother passed away, he is just unaffected by her death. He is indifferent. He had not talked to his mother in a while, he even says, "That's partly why I didn't go [visit her] much this past year" so her death did not drastically change his life. That is why he acts so robotic when attending her funeral. After trying to understand Meursault as a character and as a person, I've come to the conclusion that although he is a bit different from people's definition of "normal", he might have a heart after all.
This is a really interesting take on the narrator's feelings! I hadn't even thought about some of the points you made. I originally thought he was heartless, too, but my conclusion was that he may have been suppressing some of his emotions.
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