The Stranger, By Albert Camus

The Stranger is book written by Albert Camus. It is set in Algiers, in French Algeria, in the 1940’s. The story is about a man who murders an Arab in seemly cold blood but it is shown that it was really by chance that the man was murdered. The man who committed the murder lack morals like many of characters in the story. In The Stranger the lack of morals shows the characters in what they should be shown as, by how they react to life changing events leading to the characters proving Absurdism’s main beliefs, the search for meaning in life leads to the realization that life has no meaning or the act of filling up the void with other things. To begin Raymond, the neighbor of Meursault (the main character) in The Stranger, abuses his girlfriend …show more content…
He owns a dog with scabs all over his body and is regularly mistreated by him, but also mistreats his owner. “The dog pulling the man along until old Salamano stumbles…he beats the dog and swears at it. The dog cowers and trails behind. Then it’s the old man who pulls the dog…It’s the same thing every day” (27). There is not a of information about his life other than he treats his dog, which Meursault calls them “They look as I they belong to the same species” (27), shows that he shows a lack of compassion and morals. In his case he attacks a defenseless animal and treats it horribly. Another example is that he would beat it for urinating in the house but doesn’t allow it to have time to urinate outside. Every time the dog would do something, Salamano was right there to punish him. The reason why he is an example is because later in the story the dog runs away and he tries to find him. This might change anyone’s opinion about him, saying that he did love his dog. But in reality he lost his meaning of life. “He was looking down at the tips of his toes and his scabby hands were trembling…I heard him pacing back and forth. His bed creaked… I realized he was crying” (39). As mention before with Raymond, he is not classified as an absurdist but like Raymond he has lost his meaning of life and he is trying fill in the void. The …show more content…
While Salamano’s dog was able to escape and leave, Raymond’s girlfriend wasn’t so lucky. Because of their lack of morals they were not able to get what they wanted. But surprisingly Salamano was able to move on in a way and start over while Raymond was stuck on getting her back. Unlike them Meursault showed how uncaring he was to his mother’s death but his response is the author’s way of getting his frustrations of his childhood out in the opening. These examples support that in the Stranger, the lack of morals shows the characters in what they should be shown as, by how they react to life changing events leading to the characters prove Absurdism’s main beliefs, the search for meaning in life leads to the realization that life has no meaning or the act of filling up the void with other