Analysis: The Outsider by Albert Camus

The Outsider (1942) (previously translated from the

French, L’Étranger, as The Stranger) is Albert Camus’s
most widely known work, and expounds his early
understanding of Absurdism, as well as a variety of other
philosophical concepts. I discussed the novel on a
superficial level in my recent review, and this will
provide an overview of the work and its significance to
those who are unfamiliar with it. In this analysis I will
attempt to offer a more detailed introduction to The
Outsider, discuss a broader range of topics relating to the
work, and try to present the philosophy contained within
it in a manageable form. For those not familiar with
some of the philosophical terms, I have included links to
explanations in the ‘useful links’ section at the bottom.

The Outsider is best read in the context of its companion

piece, The Myth of Sisyphus, an essay which was
released months after The Outsider’s publication, and
which set out, in a less abstract form, Camus’s
comprehension of the absurd. Camus wrote the two
works at the same time, as well as his play, Caligula.
Together they represent his Absurd canon.

There are a number of elements that are of interest in The

Outsider, but most significant is the issue of the
protagonist, Meursault, and how he, and his story,
represent the underlying philosophies that are expounded
in the novel. I will also discuss the writing and
symbolism, and how they relate to the higher concepts
discussed.
Meursault

Meursault lives a quiet life of routine, content with his

simple office job and uncomplicated way of living. He is
a man without a past, without definable motivations; a
blank canvas upon whom the reader is forced to project
their own self, their own experiences, and identify with
intimately, provided they acknowledge their own
inherent comradeship with him. But in a more perverse
sense neither Meursault, nor we, have any history until
we realise it in the face of our own mortality.

Meursault, arguably, has two defining characteristics.

Significantly, he does not lie - adhering very strictly to
his objective view of truth - and refusing to alleviate the
discomfort this causes others by joining in the small lies
that hold society together. This dogmatic honesty is not
born from a firmly held moral position, rather it grows
out of his indifference; as he reminds the reader
constantly, he “doesn’t mind”. Indeed, this indifference
is Meursault’s second defining characteristic; he feels no
grief for his dead mother, has no romantic or career
aspirations, and makes no moral judgement of others. He
simply is, and is content with that.

In maintaining the highest levels of honesty, Meursault

embodies many of the ideals that society is so keen to
promote but, just as Kierkegaard exploded the aesthetic
sphere of existence from within, Camus demonstrates the
impossibility of living a life of principled sincerity, of
honesty without compromise. Meursault is shunned by
society for upholding their ideals to an extent that they
themselves cannot; there is complete congruence
between his emotions, thoughts, and acts, which is
unpalatable to those who fall short of these standards.
When faced with the realisation of their idealised
morality they cannot abide it, and persecute Meursault
for the sake of their hypocritical, delusional society as
much as for his crimes. Meursault is “a menace to
society” only in so much as he undermines society, and it
is for this reason that he must be put to death.

Meursault’s behaviour and ethos are entirely in line with

the ideals of Kant’s Categorical Imperative, and yet the
result is a mechanical, sub-human existence. As the
novel progresses Meursault begins to see the hypocrisy
of those moral arbiters of society, who are charged with
upholding the ideals of such an ethos, and balks at the
hollowness of their rhetoric. As he waits for death in
prison, Meursault turns inwards for morality and
develops an informed pathos, not about his own death,
but about the absurdity of the life that surrounds him.

There is some disagreement about Meursault’s awareness

of the absurd. For some commentators he is conscious of
it before the book begins, for others though, the novel
charts Meursault’s transformation through experience,
and his realisation of the absurdity of life. Camus himself
has said that Meursault was intended to be a character
that was aware of the absurd throughout the novel, and it
seems likely that, on some level, this is the case.

Meursault himself is often considered ‘The Outsider’,

and yet in many ways the novel’s title is ironic;
Meursault’s realisation of the absurdity of life gives him
a divine knowledge of the world, and it is those who
desperately cling to messianic ideologies and religious
doctrines, for whom the world is but a transitory stepping
stone on the road to eternity, that are the true outsiders.
Meursault’s belief that earthly life is one’s only life
makes death the ultimate act of nihilism, and with this
knowledge Meursault achieves a level of authenticity at
the novel’s conclusion that is beyond the grasp of those
who subscribe to the framework of morality set out by
religion and society.

As an embodiment of humanity Meursault is

paradoxically both impenetrably complex and risibly
simplistic. There is an interesting interplay between the
reader, narrator, and third-person characters, who all
perceive Meursault’s character differently. Whilst the
reader may view Meursault as emotionally-stunted, there
is little evidence that the other characters view him in
this way, in fact they treat him as a fully-rounded human
being, whose company and companionship is to be
sought. However, whilst some characters form
relationships with him, they are all one-sided, with
Meursault indifferent to their friendship. Marie and
Raymond - his closest companions within the novel -
take advantage of Meursault’s passivity, ignoring
responses they do not like and taking his lack of forceful
disagreement as assent. They assume a bond, which
Meursault himself does not feel. Indeed, Meursault
allows others to define his reactions and shape an
identity for him, which proves increasingly tragic as the
novel progresses. The reader has a more objective
viewpoint and is struck by Meursault’s lack of emotion,
and his distance from Marie and Raymond, as well as
from themselves. Indeed, Meursault does not endear
himself to the reader as one might expect a protagonist to
in a first-person narrative, and instead the reader feels as
disengaged from Meursault as he does from the world.
Where Marie and Raymond fail to see it, the reader
recognises the void in Meursault’s life, and identifies
him as ‘the stranger’.

Meursault’s unusual approach to human interaction has

led some commentators to suggest he is of low-
intelligence or mentally deficient in some manner.
However, one need only look at the comparisons
between Camus’s own life and that of his narrator’s to
dispel this idea. Like Camus’s, Meursault’s father died
before he was old enough to remember him and, like
Camus, Meursault attended college. Characters often
comment on Meursault’s intelligence, and Raymond
engages him to compose a letter of great emotional
importance. Therefore one can conclude that Meursault
is not lacking in intelligence, his autistic manner is as a
consequence of his strict adherence to objective honesty
not, as some critics have suggested, as a result of
ignorance.

However, it is true to say that there is nothing

extraordinary about Meursault - he is an everyman - a
cipher for our own existence, worthy of contemplation
only for his unnerving adherence to objective truth. He
has no aspirations, other than to be allowed to continue
life as he has chosen to live it; he rejects his employer’s
offer of promotion, and is apathetic to Marie’s proposal
of marriage. Meursault is not disengaged, he is simply
not committed to life in the way others are; he exists, and
that, for Meursault, is enough.
Maman

The death of Meursault’s mother, immediately preceding

the novel, is of huge significance. Despite his assertion
that “nothing in [his] life had changed” following the
death of his mother, on a subconscious level Meursault is
never free of her or her funeral. They are the starting
point, in both an existential and narrative sense, which
leads to Meursault’s eventual demise.

The home where Meursault’s mother lived out the last

years of her life, where Meursault placed her, represents
earth; a prison filled with men and women condemned to
death by old age and infirmity. His mother and her friend
Perez dealt with absurdity by forming a true relationship
and trusting in hope. There is only one exit from this
symbolic prison, and later Meursault is faced with the
same situation as his mother, when he is incarcerated.
Unlike her he does not repent and fall back upon
religion, but there is a nod to the cyclicality, the
inevitability, of man’s predicament.

Despite his mother representing the beginning of the end,

Meursault’s funeral vigil is symbolic of an existential
paradox too – that the knowledge of death, of its
inevitability, is the beginning of life in the authentic
sense. As Meursault sits with his mother’s coffin he is
watched over by twelve people (ten old people, the
caretaker and the nurse) who form a symbolic jury,
judging him; they foreshadow the jury who will later
condemn him. Meursault represents youth and vitality in
this scene, the coffin sterility and death, and the
onlookers the point of mediation in this antithesis.

The vigil takes place in a room that is almost

oppressively white, to the point where Meursault can
barely stand it and has the urge to flee its harsh reality.
Still bound by social order, he is unable to physically
leave and so closes his eyes to the scene, eventually
falling asleep. The bright light of the room represents the
overpowering sensation of death and the knowledge of
the absurd, something which Meursault refuses to
acknowledge, his failure to physically awake symbolic of
his failure to metaphorically awake to the full
implications of death. This brightness is tied to the
symbolism of the sun, a recurring image, and the scene
itself is linked with the shooting of the Arab, in which
the burning sun plays a large part.

Absurdism and Existentialism

The notion of authenticity and the absurd expounded in

The Outsider is evidence of Camus’s early perception of
the concept, and draws on Nietzsche’s work, a debt
which Camus himself acknowledges. The character of
Meursault embodies the nihilistic individualism set out in
The Myth of Sisyphus, that which is commonly referred
to as absurdity, as fiercely as the spiritual embody their
chosen religion.

Meursault’s absolute and unshakeable indifference to life

is a result of his inability to find sense in the absurd
strictures placed upon human behaviour by society,
mechanisms which regulate and limit human existence.
Indifference is the expression of ultimate nihilism, it is
radical and in this disengagement from life Meursault is
left only with death.

Camus said in 1956 that he intended to present Meursault

“as a man conscious, from the beginning of the novel, of
the absurdity of life,” and that he used the behaviourist
technique in the first part of the novel as it suited this
purpose. Here there is disagreement. Some critics have
argued, to the contrary, that Meursault appears to lack a
conscious awareness of the absurd during the first part of
the novel, and yet his behaviour implies an awareness,
and would be inexplicable without. In light of the
character’s behaviour and the assertion from Camus, one
if forced to assume that Meursault understands the
absurdity of life on a sub-conscious, undefined level
during the first half of the novel, and that it’s not until
the second half where this idea becomes lucid for him.

Meursault, on full acknowledgement of the absurd,

commits to an authentic existence, and the pathos that
this entails. Unlike Kierkegaard, Camus takes a position
of strict immanence, rejecting transcendence and the
possibility of any divine ordering principle and, rather
than take an absurd leap of faith, suggests rebellion is to
accept our absurd fate and live in accordance with this
knowledge, and without consideration of any external
force or meaning.

It is during his incarceration that Meursault feels the

bond between his feeling of absurdity and the absurdity
of the world, and claims it as his own, accepting on a
conscious level something which he has known only on a
subconscious level to this point. It is this insight that
brings happiness to Meursault, just as it did to his
philosophical twin Sisyphus.

The Trial

As already mentioned, Meursault is condemned not for

his crime but for his failure to partake in the absurd
conventions of society. However, whilst the trial is a
surreal projection of society’s inner absurdity, it is also
true to say that Meursault irrefutably committed the
murder for which he stands accused. Camus’s position
here is ambiguous, whether one is permitted to cause
death in the pursuit of authenticity is never resolved.
Although the trigger “gave way”, demonstrating
Meursault’s passivity, even in the decisive act of his life,
it is not clear whether this innocence of intention, this
clearness of conscience in the face of the absurd, is
sufficient to alleviate the guilt from the act itself.

Whatever the moral position one takes, the dynamic of

the trial is complex. In presenting the trial as a parody
there is an implicit indictment of the judges, and yet they
are tied to their position; if Meursault is found innocent
the jury and the judges are guilty. There is a freedom that
only a condemned man can enjoy, that perhaps affords
Meursault the space to become fully aware of the absurd,
and yet there is an intense cruelty in sentencing him to
death, just as he has begun to change, to move into
authentic life.

There is an irony in putting Meursault to death for his

acknowledgement of the absurd and his refusal to live by
the meaningless rules of society, in that those who cannot
endure the absurd themselves surrender to the promises
bought by the resurrection/execution of Christ. Meursault
is adamant in his rejection of any transcendental
ideologies, and accepts his death sentence in both the
judicial and existential sense.

If Meursault is guilty of anything, then it is, like all men,

of becoming a part of an absurd world.

Fate

Fate features in The Outsider, not in the sense of pre-

determined paths laid out by a transcendental force, but
in the sense that fate, as Camus held, is simply the notion
that we all die. There is a suggestion that, in relation to
The Outsider, one might take the notion of fate and apply
it to anything that negates freedom; the everyday forces
that restrict one’s existence and represent death. There is
no scope for religious determinism here; Meursault’s fate
is his simply by virtue of his own existence; he, like all
men, are confined to death, the ultimate pre-determined
conclusion.

In his final revelation, Meursault comes to the conclusion

that death is the ultimate canceller of freedom, that the
way one chooses to exist ultimately has no impact on this
one universal truth. Death creeps slowly towards us all,
and for Meursault his imminent execution represents the
final victory of fate over freedom.

Fate is most prominent in the scenes that lead to the

Arab’s murder. When Raymond is eager to shoot the
Arab, Meursault stops him, claiming “It would be a low-
down trick to shoot him like that, in cold blood”. It could
be argued, however, that Meursault is simply acting, on a
subconscious level, to preserve the alignment of fate,
protecting the object of his own fate. Meursault does not
intend to kill the Arab himself, the trigger “gives way”,
but in his deliberation he reasons that to shoot or not to
shoot is not an issue, the outcome is inevitable in either
case. At the moment he fires the gun he condemns
himself to the judgement of man, but the Arab’s and his
own death were always inescapable, he has simply
determining their form.

The sun plays a large role in the murder scene and, in

The Outsider, the sun is nearly always oppressive,
directly in opposition to freedom, and so comes to
symbolise fate. It intrudes at crucial points in the novel;
at the funeral, on the beach, and finally during the trial,
in which Meursault’s right to freedom is finally revoked.

The Sun

Throughout the novel, as in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, the

sun acts as symbol of life and death; it, not God, is the
sustainer of life, but it is also the decomposer of life, and
it will take Meursault's life in time too. He kills, because
of the sun. Like the bright room at Meursault’s mother’s
funeral, the sun lights the ultimate truth; death, and also
represents the overpowering effect that the awareness of
authenticity can have.

The sun recurs throughout the key scenes of the novel. In

the murder scene, the sun’s rays glint across the Arabs
head, as if a guillotine waiting to fall and, as he stands,
staring at the Arab, Meursault recognises that the sun is
the same warm sensation he had at his mother’s funeral.
As Meursault contemplates the scene he recognises that
the Arab stands between himself and the shade, a
symbolic divide that Meursault crosses when the sun’s
glare hits his eyes, and the gun’s trigger gives way, the
sun symbolic of his awakening to the absurdity of life.

In the funeral procession, the sun is hot and inescapable.

Meursault is warned that moving too fast will make him
unwell, but that lingering in the heat will have the same
effect. He is forced to walk a fine line, but is always at
the sun’s mercy.

The violence of the light that signals consciousness

suggests the mental shock of the realisation of the
absurd, but the reader is left to wonder whether the sun
of authenticity shines selectively on the isolated
individuals who realise the truth.

Writing

Camus is first and foremost an essayist, and his novels

are written more as extended essays than creative pieces
of writing. In the case of The Outsider, Camus believed
that authenticity, being an abstract concept that goes
beyond the rational, could be best relayed through the
medium of literature rather than exposition. However,
the novel should be read in relation to its companion
piece, The Myth of Sisyphus, an explanatory essay that
was published months after The Outsider, which
provides the reader with a more structured discussion of
the absurd, in comparison to the abstract vision of The
Outsider.

The novel is an exercise in abstract thought and carries

no abiding message, and yet it is wonderfully
constructed; the conclusion set in motion during the
opening lines, it moves inexorably towards Meursault as
his life is carried away from him. Neither he, nor the
reader, appreciates the significance of each nail in the
coffin before it is too late.

Set in Algiers during the 1920s, when Algeria was still a

French colony, the novel is told predominantly in the
past tense, as a reflection and meditation on the actions
that resulted in Meursault’s acceptance of the absurdity
of life and his acceptance of authenticity. The narrative
occasionally slips in the present tense, emphasising the
immediacy of the action, and the evolving nature of
Meursault’s consciousness.

In many ways the story is more than a retelling of the

past; it is a re-experiencing. But at the same time the
narrator is able to pull out the key elements that have led
to the novel’s conclusion, and so one must conclude that
a degree of hindsight, or distance from the events is
needed to describe them. The strange mix of past and
present tense in which the narrative is relayed
simultaneously implies a reflective stance and an
immediacy of action.

There is a sense that the narrative is cathartic for

Meursault, that in ruminating on the events described he
is attempting to make sense of them in his mind and set
them in some sort of order. By picking up the narrative
with his mother’s funeral, Meursault implicitly identifies
his mother’s death as the action that set in motion his
current predicament.

The jarring, atomistic sentences give an impression of

disconnect between each moment of the hero’s life,
making each a separate entity, neither connected to his
past or future self. The reader is provided with no
explanation for this stylistic choice and there is no
attempt to provide a logic which governs Meursault’s, at
times, bizarre behaviour. The sentences simply depict
arbitrary facticity.

This style is very similar to that of Hemingway, who

used short, sharp sentences, which each existed as
solitary entities, and emphasized the discontinuity of
time. Although not consistent throughout the novel,
Camus takes this idea and applies it to his style. Like
Descartes’s instant, each sentence is distinct; individual
moments don’t bleed into each other. Each sentence, like
life, has no future; they are simply a series of present
moments. The present tense emphasises this, denying the
possibility of a future from where the story is relayed.
With each sentence a form in itself, one might question
whether they amount to a whole, whether The Outsider
should be considered a coherent novel, or something else
entirely.

Marilyn Gaddis Rose has argued that, whilst Meursault

may not be aware of the significance of the events of his
life, he is aware of what is significant in it, making him a
reliable narrator.
Structurally, the novel is beautifully constructed. The
story is split into two sections: in the first Meursault
witnesses the collapse of the ethos of sincerity which he
has bought into to an extent, and begins to feel the absurd
on a conscious level rather than a subconscious level.
The second part of the story sees Meursault become fully
aware of the notion of absurdity and reflect upon his life.
He affirms his life and authenticity, and faces his
imminent death.

Equally, The Outsider revolves around three deaths:

Meursault’s, his mother’s, and the Arab’s. Both the death
of his mother and the Arab set in motion the death of
Meursault himself, and all three express degrees of
encroachment of fate upon Meursault’s existence. As for
the judge’s sentence; it has been there all the time, he has
merely made it official.

The story is perfectly balanced, with the pivotal event

occurring exactly halfway through the book, an
indication of the craft that went into writing the novel.
The narrative appears to roll inexorably towards its
conclusion. The writing is sparse, with few adjectives or
descriptive passages outside of those relating to the sun
and the murder, everything serves a function; there is no
gratuitous art.

The Arab’s death scene features the most flamboyant,

and typically creative, writing. Both the Arab and
Meursault are used as symbols for Christ. The five shots
that kill the Arab suggest the five blows that kill Christ
(the four nails used to crucify him, and the spear driven
into his side). In the Arab’s death, Meursault finds
salvation; the Arab is his personal Christ. Just as
humanity and its sins are the cause of Jesus’ death, an act
which offers the opportunity of salvation, so too
Meursault must kill the Arab to receive his redemption in
the form of authenticity. Meursault’s actions are
symbolic for all men, there is no imperative for each
individual to kill, Meursault has taken that burden from
us, and thus he becomes the novel’s second Christ
figure.

The Outsider thrives on the ambiguities Camus creates –

the strange, intangible aura that surrounds his writing.
Unlike Kafka, Camus displays an unnerving comfort in
the disorder and oddness of things, and this creates an
interesting juxtaposition for the reader, who is presented
with a reality out-of-kilter, but which none of the
characters question.

Billy Budd is often cited as an interesting comparison

piece, but perhaps more comparable are works by
Voltaire, notably his philosophical tales, Candide and
Zadig. Indeed, Meursault might be considered a similar
character to Candide, seen through a different prism.

Meursault’s trial offers obvious comparisons with

Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, but where
Dostoevsky approves the sentence which condemns his
hero, Camus disapproves of Meursault’s condemnation.