Oyediran, Abdulmateen .O.
Period 3
10.11.15
The Stranger The Stranger, by Albert Camus, is the “story of an ordinary man who unwittingly gets drawn into a senseless murder” (Back of book). Albert Camus carefully and artfully weaves numerous strange events and occurrences into a masterpiece. Each chapter of the book is composed and set up to make readers read deeply into the meaning of each and every sentence, and also to make Meursault a much more intriguing character. In Chapter 6, Meursault, the anti-hero protagonist, kills an Arab man and he doesn’t seem to react in a socially acceptable manner, he doesn’t cry or go to the police to report himself and neither does he try to kill himself, instead he is worried about how he “had shattered …show more content…
The imagery is very strong in this paragraph because Meursault pays a great deal of attention to the sun, the beach and to his environment. This strong sense of imagery can be seen when Meursault says “The sun was starting to burn my cheeks” (58) Camus’ use of imagery here tells us in a visual sense just how hot the sun was that day; so hot it was burning Meursault’s cheeks, but imagery is not the only literary device present in that small line, Diction is also present because instead of saying “burning” Camus could have easily substituted it for scorching or he could have said “It was very hot” but that wouldn’t have had the effect that the “burning” would have had; it was so hot that Meursault was in a state of physical discomfort. Examples of how Camus weaves an intricate “net” of imagery (auditory) was when …show more content…
Camus uses words such as “stinging,” “shattered,” “scorching,” and “burning” (59) in relation to how hot the beach was, how the sun glinted on the Arab’s knife and how the environment changed after the shooting. All the word’s utilized by Camus have a sudden and violent connotation but lack any sentiment as does every other word in this chapter, and this highlights Meursault’s detachment and augments it even more. Another example as to how Camus uses diction to explain and describe the murder is the simplistic sentences that Meursault uses. Throughout the Novel, Meursault doesn’t use any compound sentence structure and this is reinforced with examples like “Maman died today,” “I said ”sure”, the simplicity of all of Meursault’s sentences is disturbing because as a reader I expect him to show sorrow, regret, happiness e.t.c, But he is not, and this is shocking but also intriguing because Meursault never lies, so now we’ve got a brutally honest (almost) apathetic man, whose simplicity is refreshing yet at the same time appalling. This effect demonstrates Camus’ control of his choice of words because it is with these that he describes the murder and explains it. “My whole body being tensed and I squeezed my hand around the revolver” (59) Meursault talks about how he shot the Arab like someone would talk about playing with a chew toy; simply and without
Period 3
10.11.15
The Stranger The Stranger, by Albert Camus, is the “story of an ordinary man who unwittingly gets drawn into a senseless murder” (Back of book). Albert Camus carefully and artfully weaves numerous strange events and occurrences into a masterpiece. Each chapter of the book is composed and set up to make readers read deeply into the meaning of each and every sentence, and also to make Meursault a much more intriguing character. In Chapter 6, Meursault, the anti-hero protagonist, kills an Arab man and he doesn’t seem to react in a socially acceptable manner, he doesn’t cry or go to the police to report himself and neither does he try to kill himself, instead he is worried about how he “had shattered …show more content…
The imagery is very strong in this paragraph because Meursault pays a great deal of attention to the sun, the beach and to his environment. This strong sense of imagery can be seen when Meursault says “The sun was starting to burn my cheeks” (58) Camus’ use of imagery here tells us in a visual sense just how hot the sun was that day; so hot it was burning Meursault’s cheeks, but imagery is not the only literary device present in that small line, Diction is also present because instead of saying “burning” Camus could have easily substituted it for scorching or he could have said “It was very hot” but that wouldn’t have had the effect that the “burning” would have had; it was so hot that Meursault was in a state of physical discomfort. Examples of how Camus weaves an intricate “net” of imagery (auditory) was when …show more content…
Camus uses words such as “stinging,” “shattered,” “scorching,” and “burning” (59) in relation to how hot the beach was, how the sun glinted on the Arab’s knife and how the environment changed after the shooting. All the word’s utilized by Camus have a sudden and violent connotation but lack any sentiment as does every other word in this chapter, and this highlights Meursault’s detachment and augments it even more. Another example as to how Camus uses diction to explain and describe the murder is the simplistic sentences that Meursault uses. Throughout the Novel, Meursault doesn’t use any compound sentence structure and this is reinforced with examples like “Maman died today,” “I said ”sure”, the simplicity of all of Meursault’s sentences is disturbing because as a reader I expect him to show sorrow, regret, happiness e.t.c, But he is not, and this is shocking but also intriguing because Meursault never lies, so now we’ve got a brutally honest (almost) apathetic man, whose simplicity is refreshing yet at the same time appalling. This effect demonstrates Camus’ control of his choice of words because it is with these that he describes the murder and explains it. “My whole body being tensed and I squeezed my hand around the revolver” (59) Meursault talks about how he shot the Arab like someone would talk about playing with a chew toy; simply and without