Patience

Honestly, so far, The Stranger really is a stranger. With Camus's syntax of short, choppy sentences and the narrator's matter-of-fact personality, I, as the audience, have not really been drawn into the story yet. It seems to be exploring the trivial, everyday aspects of day to day life juxtaposed under the umbrella of grief from Mersault's mother's death.

I'm thinking the author is communicating the theme of expectations through the story. Mersault's interactions with the people around him illustrate that society has the expectation that grief should be shown in one way, even though we know scientifically that grief manifests itself in many ways.
Rather than giving us the identity of the main character right away, the author pushes his audience to have patience and go through hints to find more and more of who we're reading about. Throughout Part 1 of the story, Mersault's inner thoughts are focused on what is happening moment to moment. He wants a smoke, so he smokes. He wants to swim, so he swims. At the beach he meets a girl who he wants to have sex with, so he has sex with her.

I guess my thoughts from this are a question: Is Mersault honest? He does what he wants and tells the truth to people when they ask him questions, but is he really grieving his mother and just doing all he is doing to defy expectations? Is he being honest with himself about his feelings, or letting his logical brain take over to shield him from pain? What do you think?