Maman’s Funeral Characterises Meursault And the World of...

In the experimental novel The Stranger by Albert Camus, he explores the concept of existentialism and the idea that humans are born into nothing and descend into nothingness after death. The novel takes place in the French colony of Algiers where the French-Algerians working-class colonists live in an urban setting where simple life pleasures are of the upmost importance in the lives of working class people like the protagonist of the novel Meursault. What is fascinating about this novel is that it opens up with a scene of perpetual misfortune for him through the death of his mother although he seems to express otherwise. The reader perceives this nonchalance as a lack of care. Maman’s death and its impact on Meursault appear in both the†¦show more content†¦It seems disrespectful especially when Meursault says â€Å"it didn’t mean anything†, but the reader may not be able to understand why that is just as Meursault may not understand why remembering is important in the first place (3). The scene goes on to Meursault in his place of work where he asks his boss for the day off in order to go to his mother’s funeral. When speaking to his boss, Meursault says that his mother’s death is not his fault, and his boss goes quiet. Upon thinking about it, Meursault says, â€Å"I shouldn’t have said that† (3). This indicates that Meursault is aware of what he said had a negative affect on his boss but he does not seem to understand why. Meursault compensates for what he perceives as social inadequacy with apologies that he thinks mean something to the people around him but nothing to him. This response to his boss’s thoughts of his mother’s death characterises Meursault through the eyes of society and the reader as someone who is an alien to the world around him. Meursault than goes on to travel to the nursing home where his mother lived and then died. Meursault says that he â€Å"had to†¦borrow a black tie and arm band† (4). Meursault shows awareness of what is socially acceptable in a funeral situation in terms of how to dress and justifies why he borrowed these items from Emmanuel because Emmanuel’s â€Å"uncle had died† (3). Thus,