"the stranger" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cliff Notes)

Part Two picks up directly following the murder and ends eleven months later. We see Meursault in his prison cell and during his trial, and are introduced to the various functionaries of the state: the lawyer, the magistrate, the prosecutor, and the chaplain. Meursault compares his life in prison with his former life, and we watch how his attitudes evolve. Does he change? Or does he simply become crystalized in his old pattern? If the climax of Part One is the murder of the Arab, what do you think is the climax of Part Two? Is it the verdict at the end of the trial or Meursault's outburst when the chaplain visits him in jail? Are there other possibilities?

The two parts of The Stranger can be seen as forming a kind of duality. Part One is principally a narrative, while Part Two is mainly Meursault's commentary on his life in which he attempts to understand the reasons for existence. In Part One, Meursault walks through the world largely unaware of the effect of his actions on others; in Part Two he is conscious of every aspect of his experience, both past and present.

^^^^^^^^^^THE STRANGER: CAMUS'S PHILOSOPHY

Albert Camus was not what we would usually consider a philosopher--a person who sets forth views in a systematic, orderly fashion. Camus was, however, very concerned with some of the same questions as philosophers. Since he did not state his ideas systematically and unambiguously, it is difficult to summarize them, and there have been conflicting interpretations of his outlook.

The Stranger was published early in Camus's career, in 1942, when he was primarily concerned with what he called the "absurdity" of the human condition. People want, and need, a basis for their lives and values, but the world offers them none, Camus believed. Because there is no overarching value system, a person can't make everyday value judgments, but is adrift in a meaningless world. The inevitability and finality of death adds to the absurdity of life, in Camus's view.

Camus's outlook was in part a reflection of his inability to accept the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church (a major underpinning of French culture), which provided a firm support for life on earth. Nonreligious in a traditional sense, Camus, like many others, was cast adrift, feeling that life had no significance as well as no meaning.

Meursault may be seen as an embodiment of Camus's outlook. Life for him has little meaning on a deeper level, and he is not concerned about making value judgments or assessing right and wrong. Yet at the end of The Stranger, Meursault draws some order out of life. In an impassioned speech to a chaplain, who has been trying to convince him of the validity of the traditional Christian outlook, Meursault says life may have no deeper meaning but he indicates that he feels close to others who share life's predicament. Through this feeling of solidarity, Meursault seems to gain strength, and seems to come to terms, at least partially, with the absurdity of life.

^^^^^^^^^^THE STRANGER: CHAPTER I

Meursault, a shipping clerk in the North African city of Algiers, receives a telegram informing him that his mother has died. He expresses no sorrow when he hears the news, but only a vague interest in knowing the exact time of her death--whether it occurred "today" or "yesterday."

He asks his employer for permission to take two days off in order to attend the funeral. The boss looks annoyed--though he obviously can't refuse the request--and Meursault tries to excuse himself by saying that his mother's death wasn't his fault. It then occurs to Meursault that he has no reason to apologize and that it's up to his boss to express condolences about his mother's death.

NOTE: The Stranger is written in the first person. All the events in the story are seen or experienced from the point of view of one person, Meursault, What we know about the events in the novel and about the other characters is based on his interpretation. In the opening scenes, notice how Meursault emphasizes the external aspects of his environment, and how little you learn about his inner feelings and thoughts.

Meursault eats lunch at his favorite restaurant, Celeste's, and catches a bus to the nursing home. On the ride, he's affected by "the glare off the road and from the sky" and "the reek of gasoline," an indication that his moods are strongly influenced by immediate physical sensations. Eventually, he dozes off. He arrives at the home and the doorkeeper takes him to the warden's office. Meursault has the feeling, in the course of their conversation, that the warden blames him for sending his mother to the home.

The warden leads Meursault to the mortuary and leaves him alone beside his mother's coffin. The doorkeeper appears and begins to unscrew the lid of the coffin so that Meursault can view his mother one last time. Meursault stops him. He can't explain why, but it isn't important for him to see his mother's body. At first Meursault feels uneasy in the presence of the doorkeeper. To ease the tension, he strikes up a conversation. For most people a funeral is a traumatic experience, but Meursault isn't like everyone else. His conversation with the doorkeeper could be taking place anywhere--they might be two strangers meeting in an elevator or on a train. As night falls, the doorkeeper offers to bring Meursault a mug of cafe au lait--coffee with milk. Meursault accepts the offer, and the two men continue their vigil beside the coffin.

As you read further, you'll learn that Meursault's attitude toward his mother's death--his apparent lack of intense emotion--is one of the most important elements of the novel. Would you be surprised by a person who didn't cry at a close relative's funeral? What reasons could you attribute to such an attitude?

In preparation for the customary all-night vigil, the doorkeeper arranges a number of chairs around the coffin. Meursault, "feeling very comfortable," dozes off again. When he wakes up he has the sensation "that the light had grown even stronger than before."

NOTE: Pay close attention to the way Camus interweaves and emphasizes certain details, most notably the image of light--both natural sunlight and electric light. In this first chapter, Meursault is affected, first, by the glare of the sun as he runs for the bus and, later, by the glare of the light as he sits beside his mother's coffin. You will find many more references to light throughout the story.

The dead woman's friends file into the mortuary, They stare at Meursault, but none of them says anything or addresses him directly. Why would his mother's friends ignore him in this way? Do you have the impression they are trying to make him feel guilty? They nod their heads and suck their toothless gums. One of the old women at the vigil weeps, and the doorkeeper tells Meursault that his mother had been her closest friend. "Now she's all alone," he explains. As the night progresses, Meursault grows tired and becomes aware of a pain in his legs. At dawn, all the old people shake hands with Meursault and leave.

Many critics have described Meursault's behavior at the funeral as antisocial, as an inability to relate to other people regardless of the circumstances. The people in the nursing home were his mother's friends, yet Meursault makes no attempt to communicate with them, to find out from them what his mother's last years were like. Other readers have interpreted Meursault's behavior as part of his overall reaction to his mother's death and as indicative of the philosophical stance of someone who refuses to be anything but completely honest with himself. Meursault tells us that when he and his mother lived together they "hardly ever talked"; "during the last year," he says, "I seldom went to see her." For Meursault, the reality of his relationship with his mother was not primarily that they were mother and son, but that they were two people who had very little in common and didn't even enjoy each other's company. As you read, you'll want to form your own conclusion about why Meursault acts the way he does.

Meursault is never formally introduced to his mother's friend, Thomas Perez, the only resident of the nursing home who's allowed to attend the funeral. Yet Meursault sees him with brilliant clarity--particularly his "pendulous, scarlet ears that showed up like blobs of sealing wax on the pallor of his cheeks...." His impressions of Perez indicate Meursault's interest in the physical nature of people and things. Yet he has a hard time staying interested in anything for very long. His mind seems to work like an instant camera; after he takes the picture, however, he throws it away. To him, no one picture is much more important or carries much more weight than any other.

Meursault experiences the funeral as a series of physical sensations. He smells the hot leather and the horse dung from the hearse and feels exhausted as a result of staying awake most of the night. He has a bad headache and can barely drag himself along to the cemetery. Perez's tearstained face catches his attention, as do the church and the graves surrounded by red geraniums. But mostly, he can't wait for the funeral to end so that he can return to Algiers, to the comfort of his small apartment where he can sleep "twelve hours at a stretch."

NOTE: Camus once described the most significant kind of novel as being, in his view, "philosophy expressed in images." He claimed that "the great novelists are philosopher-novelists" who "write in images instead of using arguments." Philosophical questioning is constantly implied in The Stranger. As you read the novel, see how Camus conveys his philosophy in terms of human testimony, experience, and description--not analysis.

In this chapter, you've observed that Meursault acted with disregard for others' feelings and expectations. But he was true to his own feelings. Given Meursault's general feeling of indifference, are you surprised that he even bothered to attend his mother's funeral? Why do you think he did?

^^^^^^^^^^THE STRANGER: CHAPTER II

It's the day after his mother's funeral. For Meursault, it's like any other Saturday. The previous day's experience has tired him, however, and he decides to go for a swim. At the pool near the harbor he meets Marie Cardona, a former typist in his office. Meursault and Marie swim together, frolicking happily in the water like children. Meursault obviously enjoys swimming; it's one of the few activities that seem to give him pleasure. Meursault and Marie doze off on a raft, his head upon her lap.

NOTE: WATER IMAGERY Some readers interpret Meursault's desire to go swimming the day after his mother's funeral as an attempt to unite himself with his mother and to the prebirth state. For others, the image of bathing is a symbol of the state of innocence, the way you feel when you're a young child. Others argue that what Meursault wants most is to cleanse himself of the previous day's events--to wash the aroma of death and old age from his body. Meursault himself states that "a swim would do me good," indicating that he just wants to distract himself and relax after the events of the previous day. As you read, note all the ways in which Camus uses the image of water. You might compare the water imagery to the images of sunlight which also occur frequently throughout the book.