The Stranger: A Literary Analysis

The idea of existence precedes essence is a notion of existentialism that is hard to understand. The best way to understand this is to use the concept of death. It is impossible however, to make any sense out of death. Death is something that is outside our realm of understanding. Death is ontologically inseparable from existence. Death is always something in our lives and is the end of perception. Monsieur Meursault in the final hours of his life finally begins to understand the notion of existence precedes essence. Death rips us away from essences and revels certain qualities about existence. To live is also to die. If we can understand this, we can understand that existence precedes essence.
To better understand the concept of existence …show more content…
The first loss is Monsieur Meursault’s mother. When his mother dies, he seems to lack the sadness that most individuals would have in the situation. Meursault seems to not have any emotional connection with his mother. He has been able to detach himself from normal human constructs. Meursault has formed this approach toward the “they-self” attitude toward death by simply leaving it aside. At the end of his life he renounces death, but in the beginning, death is just of no importance. Though this may seem harsh, Meursault has begun to truly understand the death. He finds the truth of the existence of his mother’s life as well as other people. Death is personal in that death of a person cannot be grasped by another. Meursault doesn’t buy into an inauthentic orientation towards death, he focuses on what is relevant to his own experience. So, in the end, so close to his own death, Monsieur Meursault is truly able to understand the meaning of death. He can understand that to die is just to die. He understands that we are not to cry over others after they die. If we do, we only cry for ourselves, because when people die there is nothing left. After we die we take everything with us. Death takes away the essence of our lives so all that is left is the pureness of existence in our life. In the end, we are better able to understand that there is nothing but the living. To cry for someone is to cry for yourself. Death reveals a better understanding of the certain qualities of existence and rips us away from the essences that we feel the need to surround ourselves with. Because our perception first sees a thing before we describe what it is, when someone dies there is nothing to truly perceive so there is no way to describe it. Death is just what it is, there is no meaning or motion attached to it. We can cannot make sense out of death though we try. When we can truly perceive death, we can