The Stranger

About the book

In Algiers, a clerk named Meursault receives news of his mother’s death and attends her funeral with complete emotional detachment. Soon after, he begins an affair and befriends a neighbor who involves him in a dispute with a group of Arabs. Following a tense confrontation on a sun-drenched beach, Meursault kills a man for no articulable reason. During the subsequent legal proceedings, the prosecution focuses on his failure to weep at his mother’s graveside rather than the mechanics of the homicide, treating his indifference as a threat to moral order.

This book serves readers interested in existentialism and the philosophy of the absurd. It attracts those who question social rituals and the pressure to perform specific emotions. By following Meursault’s refusal to lie about his feelings to satisfy a jury, the reader examines the friction between individual honesty and judicial systems. One leaves the text with a clear understanding of the indifferent universe and the realization that human life lacks an inherent, grand purpose.

Details

Published

1942

Publisher

Vintage

ISBN

9780307827661

Language

EN