Violence In Albert Camus's The Stranger

The existence of violence within literature serves a purpose in the sense that it helps to decipher the personality and background of a character. We psychoanalyze people in our everyday lives based upon the violent nature of a man or woman. In Albert Camus’ The Stranger, the protagonist, Meursault, it is witnessed that this man does not seem to have some sort of abnormal behavior, based on his expressions. However, we cannot judge a person without seeing the true nature of this man. Within the violent scenes of the novel, the protagonist is shown to be different than all of the characters. The scenes of violence within The Stranger contribute to the discovery of Meursault as a protagonist who is seen as an strange figure, …show more content…
For Meursault, he is doing the letter because he doesn’t see any reason not to do it. For him, he sees Raymond as a friendly gentleman who only wants to take revenge on his mistress. He doesn’t see anything wrong with it because he takes the perspective that if he does go on with his plan to write the letter, he sees no harm being done on him since he is not the perpetrator. Meursault is seen as an amoral person who is not concerned of the rightness or the wrongness of Raymond’s intentions. From this example, Albert Camus portrays Meursault in this form as a way to explain that humans always try to place reasoning on everything that we can never attain an understanding on life or the universe. According to Stanford’s Encyclopedia of Philosophy on Albert Camus, it explains, “ ‘This world in itself is not reasonable, that is all that can be said’ (MS, 21). Our efforts to know are driven by a nostalgia for unity, and there is an inescapable ‘hiatus between what we fancy we know and what we really know’ (MS, 18).” In a sense, Meursault is an example of someone who lives without putting reasoning on anything. He doesn’t even cry for him mother’s death because he views her death as a natural part of the world which cannot be explained and is unlikely that anyone will ever find out. As the story unfolds, Meursault’s decisions will be based on nothing that he cannot be explain, which include his murder of Raymond’s mistress’ …show more content…
After Raymond’s plan was carried out, Meursault, Raymond, and Marie go to a beach house owned by Masson. From there, a clash erupted between the two Arabs, one of which included the mistress’ brother, which resulted in the stabbing of Raymond. He was about to shoot the Arabs but Meursault persuaded him not to shoot them. Following this conflict, Meursault was at a spring when the mistress’ brother went up to Meursault and drew out his knife. Meursault, who was blinded by the flash coming from the knife and his sweat, accidentally shot the mistress’ brother and shot four more times into the body for no apparent reason. During the trial for the murder, the prosecutor was more focused on Meursault’s lack of emotion and perceived him as a danger to the morals of society. Due to that, he was found guilty and sentenced to death. While awaiting execution, he came to a realization that death was the only thing in this world where everyone will have to experience. The world would not intercept in his peril nor would it judge his actions that he has committed. One of Meursault’s last words was, “For the first time, the first, I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe” (77). For the novel, this theme characterizes the point of view of Albert Camus, which