Letranger Essays - Absurdist Fiction, The Stranger, Meursault Wine

L'etranger The murder of the Arab is clearly the central event of the novel. Camus placed it in fact right in the middle of the book. It is the last incident recounted in part 1, so its importance is underscored by a structural break in the story. It is related in one of the longer chapters, which records in fine detail the events of the day, even when their relevance is not obvious - for example, several paragraphs are devoted to describing how Marie and Meursault frolic in the sea. The murder marks an obvious change in Meursault's life, from free man to prisoner, and some more subtle associated changes, such as his increasing introspection and concern with memory. Meursault himself describes the shooting in terms that emphasise both the destruction of a past and the start of something new: "and there, in that noise, sharp and deafening at the same time, is where - 'it all started' - I shook off the sweat and the sun. I knew that I had shattered the harmony of the day, the exceptional silence of a beach where I'd been happy". This violent crime also interrupts the routine flow of the story. Until the murder, nothing very dramatic has happened and nothing dramatic seems likely to happen. Partly, of course, this air of normality results from the way Meursault tells the story. His mother's death could have been a momentous event, but he begins the novel with the statement: 'Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don't know'. The matter-of-fact tone and the uncertainty combine to make us feel that this is not a significant event. In many stories the first moments of love seem portentous. Of his first night with Marie Meursault says, 'Toward the end of the show, I gave her a kiss, but not a good one. She came back to my place. When I woke up, Marie had gone'. One could hardly be farther from romantic rapture. A few days later Meursault agrees to marry Marie, and that too could have been presented as a turning point in his life; but he relates their engagement as if it were a routine decision: 'That evening Marie came by to see me and asked me if I wanted to marry her. I said it didn't make much difference to me and that we could if she wanted to'. In narrating the murder itself, Meursault expresses very much the same attitude as he has previously; his actions have no conscious motives. The stage is set as if by accident, and that impression is reinforced by the accumulation of details. Meursault tells this day almost moment by moment. He tells of his headache and a bitter taste in his mouth, of Marie's white dress and Raymond's blue trousers, of their decision to take a bus rather than walk. Some of the details have symbolic functions. Marie remarks that he has a 'funeral face', alluding both to the funeral and to the impending murder. They bang on the Raymond's door to summon him, foreshadowing the gunshot raps 'on the door of unhappiness' at the time of the murder. The impression that this is just another day dominates the first part of this chapter, right up to the first confrontation with the Arabs. Meursault's role in this initial fracas is very passive. He accepts the task assigned to him by Raymond, to stand by to help 'if another one shows up'. He tries to shout a warning to Raymond, but too late. In the aftermath the three men return to the bungalow, and Masson then takes Raymond to a doctor, leaving Meursault, as he puts it, 'to explain to the women what had happened. I didn't like having to explain to them, so I just shut up, smoked a cigarette, and looked at the sea'. As usual, he gives no clue as to the content of his thoughts, and nothing is reported of his conversation with the two women. Masson and Raymond return from the doctor at one thirty, two hours after the walk first began. Raymond is in a surly mood and eventually announces that he is 'going down to the beach . . . to get some air'. Masson and Meursault both propose to go with him, but he tells them to mind their own business. Masson complies, but not Meursault: 'I followed him anyway'. This is Meursault's first rejection of authority, almost his first wilful act of the novel. The two men come upon the two Arabs