In the beginning of The Stranger, Meursault attends the vigil for his mother with all of her elderly friends, including her significant other Thomas Perez. However, for the sake of being more “humane” the residents at the home were not usually allowed to attend funerals. They gave Thomas Perez an exception to go along.
The entire procession, Thomas Perez was sweating and trying to keep up in the blazing heat, but they left him limping behind multiple times. They left him so fatigued that he fainted. This is hypocritical because the funeral home was trying so hard to meet society’s standards of appearing caring and sympathetic for Maman’s death, yet they were not considerate of Perez’s pain and suffering behind the procession.
Additionally, the fact that only her son could attend, who didn’t even care about her death, seemed to corroborate the nursing home’s emphasis on their image within society’s standards; they couldn’t be bothered to try to include Maman’s elderly friends who truly cared about her and needed emotionally to be present at her burial. They called it a ‘childish sentiment’ to include Perez in the first place.
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