Emotion

The new book The Stranger that we have been reading in class involves ideas about emotions and how expressive people are. The main characters ambiguous feelings towards life itself, as well as his reactions to things related to other people bring to question his emotional responses and whether they are "normal." Some view him as a potential sociopath for because he appears to lack empathy and emotion in situations that would most likely incite those things. For example, his mother passed away and his emotional response to that event is probably not what one would think of a child.  He never cried and seemed like he was just floating through his life at that point. With this, would that be reason to believe that he is lacking emotion, or could it just be he is lacking the exact emotional response society expects from him.  Perhaps we judge how people should respond to things, and when it doesn't exactly meet our criteria, there is something wrong with them.  Or, they really are experiencing some sort of abnormal, mindset that perhaps isn't good for them, or even others.  The idea of the "right" way for someone to react to different life events is what indicates how they fit into society.