After reading the first chapter of The Stranger by Albert Camus, I felt like the protagonist , Meursault, was introduced into the story to be a detached, yet emotional. After the narrator's mother died, the tone the author used to explain Meursault’s experience seemed unethical, “Everybody felt sorry for me, and Celeste said, ‘You only have one mother.’ When I left, they walked ,me to the door. I was a little distracted because I still had to go up to Emmanuel’s place to borrow a back tie…”
While I was reading this, I felt very surprised that death had just taken place in a major character in his life, and he remains to stay unhinged? I know I shouldn’t judge a book by its cover (no pun intended) but if someone close to me just died, I would be focusing on anything other than my recent memories with them? But also, I feel like it’s really easy to judge the book and its characters when compared to this world. For all I know Meursault’s could be normal for his world. There is something in Camus’ writing though that makes me feel like he should stand out, almost like Camus expects us to judge him and set him aside with the ‘crazy characters.’ Meursault’s peers clearly expected a strong emotional reaction to his mother’s death, but he really didn’t react normally, even to the books environment. Overall, I feel like Meursault was supposed to stand out, even when reading “Nabokov Style.”
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