In this page you will find a collection of texts based on the novel The Stranger (1942), written by Albert Camus.
These series are a result of an Honors Project I made for my English 102 class this year in college. I was asked to analyze Matthew Ward’s English translation of Albert Camus’ The Stranger employing feminist methodologies. I had to examine representations of gender and sexuality as well as the way identity and power dynamics related to these topics are represented in the novel. I had to create a series of 7 lengthy, linked blog posts amounting to at least 2000 words (2000 or more words).
I obtained an A with this project, which can be read here.
The stranger and the murder
A new semester started a couple of weeks ago, and it brought with it another book to be read and analyzed during this Fall season. This time is the turn of The Stranger, a novel written by Albert Camus in 1942 and translated to English by Matthew Ward in 1989.
It turns out that this two-part novel needs a translation because, as I learned while doing some research in a website called Biblio, Albert Camus was “a French philosopher, dramatist, author and journalist” who had a poor childhood and lived through the Germans invasion of France during World War II in 1940 and therefore, the original text is written in French.
During his study years, Camus became one of the faces of Absurdism, a philosophical theory that believes that existence in general is absurd, implicating that our world has no meaning, and it is not fully intelligible by reason. Absurdism, then, “implies a tragic tone and feelings of frustration that arise out of the contradiction between the human quest for the meaning of life and its inaccessibility.”
Camus “made a significant contribution to our understanding of the Absurd but was not himself an Absurdist,” and was very frustrated at the fact that he ended tied up to said philosophical movement. This can be seen in some of his personal writings, such as one he wrote to a German friend in 1943 in which he states that “if nothing had any meaning, you would be right. But there is something that still has a meaning.” By learning these facts, we are safe to admit that even though he was good at portraying Absurdism in his work, he was not a believer of said philosophy movement.
This is important information to know when analyzing his literary work, as it is pretty influenced by Absurdism and dualisms such as “happiness and sadness, dark and light, life and death, etc..” His goal with these portrayals were to make his readers face the fact that happiness is not infinite and that we will eventually die. “Whilst we can live with dualism (accepting periods of unhappiness because we also know we will soon experience happiness) we cannot live with the paradox (thinking life is of great importance but also thinking that it is meaningless).”
Initial insights
When I first started reading The Stranger, the narration automatically caught my attention, as it has been a long time since I read something in first person. It is a bit intense to start a book with a “maman died today,” as it shocked me as a reader right away and made me think that, wherever this story might go, it was for sure not going to be one of those with a nice ending. On the other hand, said phrase works as a hook to the reader, because now I want to know what happened with his mother and what was he going to do with such a sad and terrible situation. For my surprise, as I kept reading I found out that the protagonist of The Stranger, Monsieur Meursault, did not react to the situation as I would have and that, I know now, is because of his absurd way to see life.
I had a lot of thoughts while introducing myself into this story, but a very recurrent one was the fact that The Stranger kept reminding me of a book by an Argentinian author that is a classic in our literature: El Túnel by Ernesto Sabato.
Even though that “el túnel” means “the tunnel,” I was pretty shocked to learn that the first translation from Spanish to English in 1950 was The Outsider, which is curiously the same title that The Stranger got when it was first translated in 1948.
The Tunnel’s main character is also an “absurd” figure who lives “an isolated existence and unconnected with women in a meaningful way apart from their physical desire” (Scherr, 199). Because of this, it is a common thought that the character of Meursault may have influenced Sabato but in a reverse direction when he wrote about Juan Castel, the protagonist of The Tunnel.
In other words, both Meursault and Castel could be complementary opposites, as even though they both fall under the Absurd category because they have an apathic way of approaching life, they do not seem to care much about their relationship with others, have a hard time understanding reality, and struggle to find meaning in a meaningless world, their perspectives change with a key point in both stories: the woman they “love”.
Women in times of the Absurd
According to the Royal Spanish Academy, the patriarchy is defined as a primitive form of social organization in which the authority is exercised by a male that is the head of a family and the owner of their patrimony. Nevertheless, the power that comes from said authority can have divine origin, family origin or be founded on the agreement of wills but, no matter what the cause is, the dominance of males over females holds in all cases.
While thinking about these two men and comparing their similarities and differences, I cannot help but notice that they both revolve around the patriarchy ideals, as when we talk about a relationship within a man and a woman it is impossible to not think of it, specially nowadays. The difference, however, lies in the way in which they approach said ideals.
Unlike Castel, Meursault is not “insanely jealous in matters involving his paramour Marie” (Scherr, 199). While reading The Stranger, it is clear that Marie is attracted to him, because she feels insulted when Meursault appears unconcerned about her whereabouts. We know that he is curious about said things, but he just does not want to violate her privacy. (Scherr, 199) Even though this fact is later used in the trial to prove that his passivity towards Marie means that he lacks human feelings, I believe that what he is doing is respect the woman’s autonomy, pulling himself away from the patriarchal pattern that is most common in this kind of relationships.
Here is the first step in which we can see the contrast between Meursault and Castel, as Sabato’s character is possessive and obsessive with Maria, his lover. Different from Meursault, Castel demands her to tell him everything about her past love affairs and insists that she spends all her time with him, two attitudes that certainly fall under the patriarchal wing.
Following this idea, in The Stranger “Meursault shows no tendency to violence against women,” as even though he participated in Raymond’s plan to humiliate his Arab ex-girlfriend, Meursault “does not anticipate that Raymond will physically assault her” (Scherr, 203). Different from him, Juan Castel (The Tunnel) is driven by his ideals of violence against women: he is not charming towards them, does not have a good relationship with them and intends to manipulate every aspect of their lives.
It is Murder time
The fact that both characters are killers cannot be denied: The Stranger and The Tunnel are novels that are told in first person, from their protagonist’s perspective, as a sort of confession on how the murder happened and all the situations and events that influenced them in order to take said decision. Meursault’s crime, however, is not related at all to the patriarchal ideals, different from Castel, who literally kills his lover because he cannot have her all for himself, he cannot fully possess her.
Both novels begin with a line about death: for Meursault it is his mother’s death, for Castel, his lover’s. This distinction, then, is important not only because of the death itself, but because the dead character is an important woman for the protagonist of each story. Even though Meursault’s crime is not a passional one, we understand that losing his mother at the beginning of this story directly influenced the choices he made after it, causing a sort of domino effect that ended with him killing a person.
Following this idea, we understand that both men have an emotional dependence directly on the women they love, either is their paramour or their mother, because the lack of them is the start point for the crimes to happen. If we talk about Meursault, it is evident that, for him, losing his mother created this initial struggle to find meaning in a meaningless world, making him feel empty and trying to fill that emptiness with the relationships he creates after his mother’s death.
Meursault’s indifference towards life was what put him in Raymond’s path on the first place, which then lead him to be involved in the conflicts with the Arabs, get the gun and then, kill one of them. In the same way, said indifference puts him in a relationship with Marie that he seems to not care about much until he is in jail and realizes he does.
Final Thoughts
After analyzing some of the aspects in both The Stranger and The Tunnel, we come to the conclusion that the protagonists from said novels are similar in many ways, but completely opposite in most others. When it comes to their representation of the patriarchal ideals in both stories, it can be seen that Castel is a perfect example of what the Royal Spanish Academy defines as patriarchy, as he maintains through the whole story that he must “hold exclusive possession of Maria, not only sexually but by dominating her thoughts and monopolizing her time” (Scherr, 200).
Meursault, on the other hand, does not force his manhood over Marie. He “avoids exaggerating the significance of sexual contact as being anything more than physical pleasure, although for him this is important” (Scherr, 200). He is a combination of giving her some space and not caring at all about what is going on around him, which can be insulting for Marie as well, but not as close as how it was for Maria.
In this story, Meursault is “a victim of chance and circumstance” different from Castel, who “initiates the actions that decide his fate” (Scherr, 204). This demonstrates us that if Meursault would have been able to show some interest in the situations he participated in, other than just acting apathic in all of them, his fate might have been different. In his relationship with Marie, for instance, he could have used his small amount of respect for her that allowed him to not dominate her in a patriarchal way to find some meaning in life and not end up as he did.
Marie, after all, was ready to spend a life with him and stay by his side, and I fully believe that if he would have been smart enough to stop his Absurd thinking on time, the story would be different. I also think, however, that by doing this Camus was able to perfectly portray this dualism I was talking about earlier. Happiness is not forever, and we will eventually die; and that is exactly what happened to Meursault, who had a glimpse of happiness when spending time with Marie but now waits on his cell the moment to be beheaded – and end with that meaningless life.
(Assignment #2)
In the name of the mother
While we keep working on the analysis of The Stranger, a novel written by Albert Camus and translated to English by Matthew Ward in 1989, it is important to remember, as found in a website called Biblio, that Albert Camus was “a French philosopher, dramatist, author and journalist” who had a poor childhood and a youth with lack of love and “with pity for his
mother,” as explained by Arthur Scherr in Revolt Against the Mother.
mother,” as explained by Arthur Scherr in Revolt Against the Mother.
These pieces of information are important because, if we intend to go deeper in our studies about some different points of view under a feminist lens when it comes to reading The Stranger, one of our main subjects needs to be the relationship of Meursault with his mother and, in order to understand said relationship, we need to take a close look at the relationship of Camus with his own mother, as it is a direct influence on the story we are analyzing.
In Revolt Against the Mother, Arthur Scherr highlights that Camus’ mother worked “long hours as a charwoman,” resulting in Albert having to be raised by his grandmother, something that did not affect him in a good way. It is possible that “Camus’ obsession with despair and death and the need to transcend them had two sources in his childhood: a domineering sadistic grandmother who beat him,” and a mother who allowed it. (Scherr, 171).
Moreover, as Arthur Scherr makes clear, a child who “is not fondled, caressed and lovingly touched by its mother is apt to become autistic and fear intimate, affectionate personal relationships as an adult” (173), and this is what can be seen through the story that is told in The Stranger. We as readers do not exactly know why Meursault is the way he is but, when doing
some research about Camus’ life, it is easy to find out where this idea came from.
The lack of love and attention that Camus suffered as a child plus the amount of mistreating from his grandmother can totally be reflected in his way of describing Meursault’s thoughts and feelings (if any at all) towards his “maman.” It is usual for us as members of society to feel love and attachment to our parents but more to our mothers, as they are the ones that nurture and care the most about us. For Camus, however, this is different, and it can be seen with Meursault, who is a man that goes against the rules of society “and in a primal sense against his mother, the embodiment of the socialization process and the superego” (Scherr, 175).
It is also valid to affirm that Camus used The Stranger as a way of “making restitution to himself” by somehow burying the “oedipal conflicts” that may have existed in his life, and this is something that can be seen in the novel with the relationship between Meursault and Marie. The fact that Meursault began an affair “the day after his mother’s funeral reveals that Camus himself may have experienced a kind of sexual liberation” after his mother death, which is also a kind of
freedom that only appears when a man finally “defies the threat of maternal seduction” (Scherr, 176).
Finally, in order to understand that Camus’ relationship with his mother directly influenced the writing of this novel, we need to distinguish the author’s main explanation about this unusual relationship and why did he portray it in The Stranger: “in our society, any man who does not weep at this mother’s funeral runs the risk of being sentenced to death” (Scherr, 176). This is exactly what he describes with the creation of Meursault, someone who perfectly reflects the majority of his thoughts and also someone who, effectively, had his sentence to death defined by the fact that he did not cry at his mother’s funeral.
(Assignment #3)
How to (not) get away with murder
In our society, “a man who does not cry at his mother’s funeral is liable to be condemned to death,” wrote Albert Camus in his own afterword to a 1955 edition of The Stranger, according to Arthur Scherr (1977), and this is exactly what was portrayed in the novel and what happened to Meursault.
As we learned by reading Revolt Against the Mother, it is easy to think that most of Camus’ relationship with his own mother was used as an inspiration for the creation of Madame Meursault and her connection with her son. Camus’ childhood was affected by the fact that he was raised by his grandmother with a great amount of mistreating and a lack of love and affection, which made him resent his mother but also feel pity for her.
If we pay close attention to how Meursault describes his “Maman,” we come to the conclusion that he could care less about her and vice versa. As discussed in our English class, when Meursault first “places her in the retirement home, she cries and then gets used to it, and is happier without him.” The same thing happens to Meursault, who rearranges their whole apartment and moves all his stuff into one room, using only that space and not thinking about what it used to be with his mother around.
Following the same idea, we can also understand that Meursault does not “seem to know his mother much,” as he cannot remember her age, he has no idea that she wanted a religious burial, and he finds out about her relationship with Tomas Perez right at the vigil at the retirement home. Maman, however, comes to Meursault’s mind when he hears Salamano crying for his dog, when he kills the Arab under the hot sun, and at the end of the novel, when he thinks about her last days and what she did with them.
But Meursault “is indifferent and closed, not because he is inhumane and insensitive, but because he has an emotional problem which he solves by repressing his feelings,” explains William Conroy Jr in Meursault’s Repression: Maman and Murder (42). Although Maman comes to his mind during all those emotional moments, Meursault is incapable of dealing with everything related to his mother’s death not because he has no feelings, but because he has repressed them, as this is the only thing he has learned to do when it comes to emotions.
Unfortunately, the similarities within the day that Maman was buried and the day that he killed the Arab put Meursault in a position in which his morals and ethics can be easily judged by anyone that can consider themselves a part of the society. When he tells us about the murder, he starts by saying that “it was the same sun as the day I had buried Maman and, like then, I had a great pain especially in the forehead where all the veins were beating together under the skin.” (Conroy, 44) This line can explain that Meursault might have been triggered by feeling the same sensations he felt when burying his mother, but certainly is not an excuse for the other four shots that came after his breakdown.
These four shots, explains Conroy, “constitute a catharsis for the heretofore self-contained Meursault and a demonstration of his feelings for his mother.” They seem to be a delayed “outpouring of affection and anger that Meursault could not manifest the day of the funeral, a delayed flow of tears, so to speak.” If his love for his Maman and his anger about her dying had been suppressed for that long, killing the Arab served as a release for “his hatred of death that has deprived him of his mother, trying to kill death.” (Conroy, 45).
Meursault and Maman’s relationship is not usual. His repression of emotions towards everything in his life, especially the things that involved his mother, come from longs ways, as he seems to have learned to do so years ago. For the majority of the people, a mother works as a way to form our own ego and the sense of ourselves in relation to others, therefore, this is where all Meursault’s issues when relating to others can come from.
The fact that Maman comes to his mind in all those emotional moments supports, then, the idea that she represents his repressed feelings, which were buried with her during her funeral but came back to the light when he was triggered at the beach by the same sensations he felt back then. If he would have developed some emotional intelligence at some point in life, maybe he might have been able to avoid committing a murder and find a better way to cope with his repressed emotions. But The Stranger is not a fairytale, so the fact that he did not cry at his mother’s funeral caused a Dominoes effect that resulted, indeed, in a sentence to death.
(Assignment #4)
A strange perspective
When we work on the analysis of The Stranger, a novel written by Albert Camus and translated to English by Matthew Ward, we have to keep in mind that the women of his childhood affected Camus’ way to approach the female ideals in his work. This made the author to unconsciously relate women with issues such as the lack of love and affection (something that probably started because of the mistreatment he received from his grandmother), resentment and pity (something that he felt for his mother, who would not take care of him), and to leave the female characters always on the background or as the cause of the problem.
As researched by Louise K. Horowitz in “Of Women and Arabs: Sexual and Racial Polarization in Camus,” we understand that “the eradication of women and Arabs from Camus’ work can neither be denied, nor explained away (‘it was the sun’), nor seen as a colonial lapsus.” This happens because Camus has made his work about men who “reflect a collective attitude or mentality of sexual and racial fear” and does not allow us readers to be aware of this issue. (Horowitz, 55)
Meursault works as the perfect example, as for him “violence is sexually conditioned, and it is doubled by racial motivation.” (Horowitz, 56) We can see this in his relationship with his mother, which was “semi-abusive” from both sides but demonstrated Meursault’s careless attitude towards life (and towards women), in his relationship with Marie, which he did not seemed much interested in as he performed little to nonaffective liability, and especially in the “episode with Raymond’s prostitute”, as the way in which the situation is described lets us see Camus’ judgement through Meursault’s eyes.
Following this idea, Horowitz understands that, for Camus, male protagonists “are subject to disquieting reactions linked to sexual and racial antipathy and fear.” Meursault’s relationships are narrated in such a peculiar way that Camus makes us see the female (and foreign) victims “not as victims, but as inevitable and necessary losers in a bitter social struggle.” (Horowitz, 58)
Meursault also “disparages marriage and women’s emotional values,” as we can see when Marie asks him if he loves her and if he would marry her, and he just answers that marriage is not a big deal for him as he does not care about it at all, but that if that is what she wants, then he would marry her. Such behavior, explains Horowitz, “testifies to a mentality that is misogynist in the extreme, just as his racial fears.” (Horowitz, 59)
The portrayal of Meursault as someone who was misunderstood by society and, therefore, a victim of it shows this idea of women’s interests not being represented in Camus’ literature or, even worst, the female characters used as the cause of the problem. If we narrow down the plot, Meursault commits a murder because he and Raymond got in an argument with a group of Arabs, and said argument was caused, if we read it this way, by Raymond’s prostitute.
It is evident that Meursault had little to none interest on the wellbeing of his mother, another one of the significant female characters in The Stranger, but some people might argue that Meursault did indeed care for Marie. It is clear, however, with his attitudes towards her, that she was only there to fulfil his sexual desires, as he never really cared about her feelings and the last time he thinks about her is when he is in jail and thinks about women in general and the pleasure that comes with them.
This treatment shows, then, the ability that Albert Camus has to “deny the subliminal currents flowing underneath” and to make the readers ignore and eradicate the women and foreign issues that are evident in The Stranger. (Horowitz, 59) He makes us see Meursault as a victim that made a small mistake and needs to just be forgiven, when in reality he is a criminal like any other that also reproduces misogynistic attitudes that are overlooked and forgotten.
(Assignment #5)
An absurd idea of women
During this last couple of weeks we have been discussing that the women of Albert Camus’ life, especially the ones during his childhood, affected his literary work and the way in which he approached the feminist ideals in his creations. This may lead us readers to think, following said concept, that the main character of the novel The Stranger “displays a detachment not only from the nebulous idea of society, but also from women.”
The truth is, as we well know, that Meursault does not cry at his mother’s funeral and does not sympathize with Raymond’s ex-girlfriend when he brutally beats her, making the reader to dive down deep into this idea of every women in his life being insignificant for him.
One might think that such a peculiar and solitary man would act in said way with every other person but appreciate the company of a girlfriend. Meursault, however, does not love his own girlfriend either, even though he enjoys her company and highlights the sexual pleasure that he gets from her. If we check the “women and femininity” notes in the educational website Shmoop, we understand that “Meursault’s actions and attitude towards his relationship with Marie is representative of his actions and attitudes in general: he is motivated only by the physical and concerned only with himself.”
But… What is Marie’s role in Meursault’s life? What does she represent in The Stranger?
Marie Cardona can be described as someone “simple, undemanding, and guileless.” She has a regular job and a couple normal hobbies, such as swimming and watching comedies. Her desires, then, are “uncomplicated: love, marriage, and delightful social outings, preferably at the beach.” We perceive her as someone who does not need much, and it is easily satisfied with a relationship that is “more sex than words” … and the issue with this is that she seems that way because we only know Marie through Meursault’s absurd eyes.
In situations in which Meursault is detached and unconcerned, Marie is always portrayed as loving and positive: even though he admits that he does not love her and that marrying her would not change anything, the woman keeps seeing him and enjoying his company, which may make us think that her role in The Stranger is to provide the hope and emotions that Meursault lacks.
Following this idea we understand that, when interacting with female characters, and specifically with Marie, Meursault’s narration centers on himself and his physical desires, thoughts, and feelings, other than dedicating his attention to the female character about which he is talking. This happens because, according to Camus himself, Meursault can be considered as someone who “lives without hope of finding any transcendent significance in his life, and he recognizes the meaninglessness of his seductions. He is not looking for true love; he wants only to experience the continual repetition of his conquests.”
In other words, Meursault sees Marie as another part of his world. Her talk about love, marriage, and everything else that her persona entails means nothing to him because she, too, exists only in the moment. Marie is just a piece of his absurd puzzle, and her ideals are pointless for his meaning of life.
(Assignment #6)
A Don Juanist Meursault
The majority of the critics and comments about The Stranger by Albert Camus focus in the protagonist of the novel, Meursault, and analyze him from different perspectives, most of them related with psychology or with crime and law. Nevertheless, us readers understand that Meursault “displays a detachment not only from the nebulous idea of society, but also from women,” as we have been discussing on this blog for a couple of weeks now.
Most readers agree with the fact that, if they were to be in Meursault’s solitary shoes, they would appreciate the company of a girlfriend, a friend, or any kind of woman, especially because of the lack of love and affection that he lets us know he suffered in his past.
So… why does Meursault act this way towards women, specially Marie, who seems like the perfect match for his odd personality?
Luckily for us, Albert Camus has the answer in other of his well-known books, The myth of Sisyphus (1942). In this collection of essays Camus talks about Don Juanism, a concept that, for him, explains the absurd man in a perfect way and, for us, describes Meursault from head to toe.
Camus uses the myth of Don Juan to create this definition, a myth that first showed up in “The Mocker (Burlador) of Seville and the Stone Guest” in which the monk Gabriel Tellez crystallized forever the idea of this “libertine damned.” In each of his adventures, “Don Juan achieves his purpose by assuming the identity of a lover or prospective bridegroom, - even posing as his bosom friend, the Marques de la Mota, in an unscrupulous attempt on the latter’s beloved.” In other words, Don Juan was capable of attracting the interest of multiple women at the same time and, by doing so, he would also break their hearts.
Using this myth, Camus explains that “it is not through lack of love that Don Juan goes from woman to woman,” but it is because “he loves them with the same passion and each time with his whole self that he must repeat his gift and his profound quest.” Following this idea, Camus understands that Don Juan is an ordinary seducer, except for the fact that “he is conscious, and that is why he is absurd.”
It is important, then, to highlight the difference between the absurd and the ordinary man. “The difference, it seems, between Don Juan and an ordinary seducer, is not so much a difference in behavior as a difference in their attitude toward their behavior.” By doing this, we acknowledge that, for Don Juan, there is nothing beyond the seduction other than the joy of seducing per se. He understands that his life is meaningless and that his actions have no more significance besides his own consequences in his own life. And so does Meursault.
Meursault is, indeed, a great example of what Camus described as Don Juanism. For this absurd men, love is known to be something mortal and, therefore, “there is no noble love but that which recognizes itself to be both short-lived and exceptional.” This is why Meursault sees Marie as just another part of his world. Everything that has to do with Marie is not important to him, because she could be any other woman that exists only in this moment.
Both Meursault and Don Juan rely on the fact of not hoping for anything more than what life has given to them, and this is simply because their actions will only have consequences in this world and not anywhere else beyond it. With this idea, we can see that Meursault takes Marie because life has given her to him, and anything that involves his relationship with her will not perdure in time. It will have, however, an ultimate end, “awaited but never desired” and negligible.
(Assignment #7)
The absurd masculinity we live with
During the last couple of weeks we have been talking about some aspects of the novel The Stranger, written by Albert Camus in 1942 and translated to English by Matthew Ward in 1989. We learned that Camus was a French philosopher, dramatist, author, and journalist who had a poor childhood and lived through the German’s invasion of France during World War II in 1940. We also gathered some information from the author’s early years, and we discovered that, as a child, Camus did not receive much love and attention from his mother and, on top of that, he was mistreated by his grandmother on a daily basis.
Following this line, we are safe to affirm that the women of his childhood affected Camus’ way of approaching the female ideals in his work. All this background made the author unconsciously relate women with issues such as the lack of love and affection, resentment and pity, and also to leave the female characters always as a second choice or as the cause of the problem.
After learning this, we understand that, when interacting with female characters, and specifically with Marie, Meursault’s narration centers on himself and his physical desires, thoughts, and feelings, other than dedicating his attention to the female character about which he is talking. This happens because, according to Camus himself, Meursault can be considered as someone who “is not looking for true love; he wants only to experience the continual repetition of his conquests.”
However, we cannot help but wonder why Meursault acts this way towards women and specially towards someone like Marie, who seems to be ready for him and for anything that he might need or desire.
Even though Meursault’s actions can be explained with the Don Juanism concept, created by Camus himself, we felt the need to go beyond the idea that explains that, for these absurd men, there is nothing beyond the seduction of women other than the joy of seducing per se. Sure, both Don Juan and Meursault attract women just because they are “here and now”, existing in the moment, and simply because their actions will only have consequences in this world and not anywhere else beyond it. But, on top of that, they are also members of the Masculinity club, and in a very toxic way.
Masculinity can be defined as something that “essentializes the character of men or imposes a false unity on a fluid and contradictory reality” (Cornell, 2005). In other words, this concept (and femininity too) is created in terms of a “single pattern of power,” which is the one that states the “global dominance of men over women. This dominance happens in every aspect of life as it is known, and it also aligns with the idea of viewing women as inferior instead of equal.
The very toxic way, following this idea, happens when men reproduce that power dominance, acting out and avoiding showing their emotions, always demonstrating that they are tough, powerful and aggressive.
This behavior can be seen in Meursault a lot through the narration of The Stranger. On the first place, we can see it in his relationship with his mother. It is clear for the reader that he does not see her as equal, but inferior. He also has Maman come to his mind in all the “emotional” moments, showing us that she represents his repressed feelings, which were buried with her during her funeral but came back to the light when he was triggered at the beach by the same sensations he felt back then.
The toxic masculinity is also represented in Meursault’s interactions with other characters among the novel, like Raymond, for example. His situation with his lover shows us that Meursault surrounds himself with men that are on the same page and do not respect women at all. He can tell that there is something odd in the incident with Raymond and his girlfriend, but not only he does not do anything in favor of that oddness that he felt, but he supports Raymond and testifies for him, somehow protecting this masculine code that we all know it exists, even though it is not explicitly put on words.
And then, we have Marie. Meursault sees her as another part of his world. Her talk about love, marriage, and everything else that her persona entails means nothing to him because she, too, exists only in the moment, as his absurd self can clearly see and align with Don Juan’s ideas. However, it is not that Marie is just a piece of his absurd puzzle, and her ideals are pointless for his meaning of life, but also she works as the perfect other end for a “single pattern of power” relationship. She does not express her discontent with Meursault not loving her and keeps going on as if nothing happened instead. This works for Meursault because he has the power and she just accepts it, respecting the masculinity ideals and, therefore, allowing him to get to the toxic point.
Meursault takes Marie because life has given her to him, it will not perdure in time and, deep inside, he does not really care. The same thing happens with the way in which he sees his mother or how Raymond treats his girlfriend, as he does not seem it as important and, instead of questioning it, he decides to keep reproducing the same toxic masculinity pattern that took him to where he is at now.
If either Meursault or Marie herself were to question any of all of these situations, maybe his story would have not ended with a dead Arab and a Capital Punishment but, if that would have been the case, The Stranger would have been a romantic one and not one of the best examples of Absurdism that exist in our literature.
Works cited
“Absurdism.” New World Encyclopedia, https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/absurdism. Accessed 13 September 2022.
“Albert Camus.” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, https://iep.utm.edu/albert-camus/#SSH5ciii. Accessed on October 5th, 2022.
“Albert Camus Books - Biography and List of Works.” Albert Camus Books - Biography and List of Works - Author of 'Stranger', https://www.biblio.com/camus-albert/author/318 . Accessed 13 September 2022.
Camus, Albert. “Absurd Walls” The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays, translated by Justin O’Brien, 1955. Book provided by English 102 Class.
Camus, Albert. L’Etranger [The Stranger]. Trans. Matthew Ward. 1942; New York: Vintage International, 1989.
Connell, R. W., and James W. Messerschmidt. “Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept.” Gender and Society, vol. 19, no. 6, 2005, pp. 829–59. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/27640853. Accessed on October 24th. 2022.
Conroy Jr, William. “Meursault’s Repression: Maman and Murder” College Literature 7
(Winter, 1980): 41-46.
(Winter, 1980): 41-46.
Horowitz, Louise K. “Of Women and Arabs: Sexual and Racial Polarization in Camus.” Modern Language Studies, vol. 17, no. 3, 1987, pp. 54–61,https://doi.org/10.2307/3194734 . Accessed 4 Oct. 2022.
Pratt, Dallas. “The Don Juan Myth.” American Imago, vol. 17, no. 3, 1960, pp. 321–35, http://www.jstor.org/stable/26301743 . Accessed on October 17th, 2022.
Scherr, Arthur. “Albert Camus’s “L’Etranger” and Ernesto Sabato’s “El Túnel””. Romance Notes 47 (Winter, 2007):199-205.
Scherr, Arthur. “Revolt Against The Mother.” American Imago 34 (Summer, 1977): 170-178.
“The Stranger: Women and Femininity.” Shmoop Study Guides, https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/the-stranger/themes/women-and-femininity. Accessed on October 10th, 2022.