Thursday, October 5, 2017
The Good in Meursault
Throughout the first part of The Stranger, Meursault’s apathy is from time to time disturbed by sparks of natural emotion and empathy. Meursault’s relationship with Marie provides a good example of this internal struggle. Most of the time, he treats their ties very casually and downplays their relationship in public. For instance, in conversation with Raymond he refers to her as just “a girlfriend”. Yet, the very next day he catches himself thinking that “for the first time maybe, [he] really thought [he] was getting married.”
Earlier, Meursault has also expressed sentimental feelings towards Marie. “But as we were fixing lunch, and for no apparent reason, she laughed in such a way that I kissed her”, he recounts immediately after telling Marie that he didn't love her. This is one of the very few moments when Meursault seeks physical intimacy with his girlfriend not out of sexual arousal, but from a point of deeper emotional connection, attracted by her personality rather than just her body.
Another instance of Meursault’s emotional vulnerability occurs when he hears Salamano crying over the loss of his dog. “For some reason I thought of Maman,” comments Meursault. This remark shows that subconsciously he can still relate to Salamano’s tragedy, and perhaps feels a resemblance of grief for the death of his mother, even if he is not able to rationalize or express this feeling.
Clearly, Meursault’s nihilistic world view is at odds with his emotions. Is apathy just a mask that he wears in public? Or it rooted more deeply in his personality? If so, has he always been like that, or was his character shaped predominantly by experience?
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Daniel, I agree! I think that by embracing an existential mindset, Meursault ignores and minimizes his own emotions but cannot destroy them. The easy way out would be to say that his apathy is a characteristic of his personality. Instead, I think Camus, who is attempting to portray existentialism through this book, believes that the sparks of human emotion Meursalt encounters can be included under the umbrella of existentialism because they are evidence of his humanness, and therefore his life. Even so, I do not think that means that these emotions are not examples of human connection. Perhaps Camus is trying to say that human emotion is very different from human connection - One is real and one is socially constructed.
ReplyDeleteI think the point that you brought up about the extent of Meursault's apathy is key in understanding him as a character. His apathy is not just something he puts on in public, because even when he is alone he shows examples of it. I think it is so deep in his personality that it is the main driving force for all of the decisions he makes. The most integral parts of his personality are apathy and rejecting a social norms.
ReplyDeleteI think that Meursault's mask of apathy doesn't just hid his emotions from the public, but also from himself. The line you pointed out, "For some reason I thought of Maman," shows that he is incapable of analyzing his own emotions and is just as lost as to what he feels as everyone else is. However, the simple fact that he thought of Maman shows that he isn't completely incapable of understanding emotion, whether or not it shows that he does still feel. On one hand, it could be a sign that he recognizes that he took his mother for granted while he had her, just as Salamano did with his dog, but on the other, he could just be observing the similarities others could see. I think your other questions also pose some other questions that could be interesting to look at. If he was shaped by experience, what happened to him to cause him to lock away his emotions? If his deficit is not a result of experience, is there something else wrong with him? I hope these questions will be answered as the book progresses, but for now we'll just have to read and find out.
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