The Theme Of Absurd Emotions In The Stranger By Albert Camus

Absurd Emotions To answer the question of what the meaning of life is, one must first answer the question of whether life matters at all. Albert Camus toys with these questions in his novella “The Stranger” and pulls the strings of the heart and mind. In the aforementioned novella, Meursault, a universally apathetic observer and also the protagonist, is put on trial for the inscrutable murder of another man. Rather than focusing on the crime, the prosecution focuses on Meursault’s character. His character is lackluster to begin with, he internally rants about things he does not like as well as having a small capacity for emotion. Meursault’s connection to the physical world in relation to the emotional spectrum, or rather lack thereof, can be explained with the knowledge of Camus’s personal worldview of absurdism. Meursault does not have an emotional connection because absurdism implies that emotions do not matter in the grand scheme of the universe. Meursault’s physical connection, or more …show more content…
It can be surely assumed that this is a projection of Camus’s absurdism, so what can explain Camus atheistic views? Head of research for Stanford’s “Philosophy Talk” and bearer of a Ph.D. Laura Maguire tries to explain this in her article “Camus and Absurdity”, “Take religion. It certainly seems to provide comfort to many people, but this could not amount to genuine meaning for Camus because it involves an illusion. Either God exists or he doesn’t. If he doesn’t, then it’s obvious why he could not be the source of life’s ultimate meaning. But what if God does exist? Given all the pain and suffering in the world, the only rational conclusion about God is that he’s either an imbecile or a psychopath. So, God’s existence could only make life more absurd, not less” her conclusion supports Meursault’s beliefs. Meursault's only benefit from believing in God is