Meursault has an interesting prison experience. He feels intense loneliness throughout his jailing experience, focusing mostly on how to pass the time before he gets his head cut off and dreaming of how to escape his situation. He also imagines himself on the beach and eating food. Meursault's experience with jail reminded me of that of Andy, the guy who escapes his life sentence for murdering his wife in Shawshank Redemption. They both are accused of murder and have dreams of escape. What I find the most interesting is the power of patience both of them have. Andy hammered a hole for 19 years to get himself free, and Meursault waits 'endlessly' to wait for his fate, filling up his time with memorizing every detail in his cell.
Not only do both of them have impressive patience, they both make the best of their experience and keep their hope. Andy spends his days hiding money for the prison's headmaster and later used it to escape, while Meursault embraces the choices he made and doesn't regret how he lived. Andy and Meursault both lived how they wanted, and made choices that were not influenced by society. Unlike the other inmated, Andy decides to try escaping and he lives as a bookworm, a pariah of the prison. The Stranger and Shawshank Redemption both show the powerful and independent men of prison. They lived their lived freely and made their own choices, which resulted in punishment. But even while in jail, they were still able to live their own ways. Andy was able to escape and choose his own life while Meursault was able to accept how his life will end and that death in unavoidable.
Both Meursault and Andy Dufresne certainly obtain a great amount of patience during their time at jail. However, I would content that a stark difference between the two is that while Meursault sees no universal value or meaning in life, Andy is set on escaping because he retains his faith in 'hope'. Hope is what pushes Andy on during his time in Shawshank, while Meursault does not have any 'hope' that he will escape the death penalty. Instead, he rationalizes that either possibility — surviving and dying — are not so different.
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