Purveying the ideology of absurdism, The Stranger is a powerful and unsettling meditation into the philosophies of morality, detachment and societal mores. Monsieur Meursault is a prosaic, staid and uncontroversial individual who goes about his business with neither fanfare not frenzy. His emotional detachment bewilders people around him. His disinterestedness in the world around him is blisteringly encapsulated in the opening words of the book, “Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday; I can’t be sure. The Telegram from the Home says: your MOTHER PASSED FUNERAL TOMORROW. DEEP.”

Meursault’s aloofness and reticence to mimic conventional norms alters his life in an adverse manner. In a cascade of events, belying imagination, Meursault ends up killing an Arab, pumping four bullets into an already inert body. The trial of Meursault turns out to be a fascinating and farcical exercise in absurdism with the Prosecution attempting to fit the square peg of rationality into the round hole of irrationality. Or is it the other way round? Does it matter anyway?

The trial loses complete sight of the fact that Meursault’s bizarre actions might have been a combination of delayed self defence and a disorientation caused by a blazing sun on a sweltering beach. Before the assassination of the Arab, the deceased and a bunch of his egregious companions accosted Raymond, a friend of Meursault and slashed him on the arm and face with a knife. Raymond has a sordid history with the sister (who also happens to be his mistress) of one of the Arabs. Meursault with no premeditated motive takes a stroll on the beach with Raymond’s gun in his pocket. At a particular place, he sees the Arab in a prone position and upon Meursault approaching him, the latter draws out his knife. Meursault without thinking instinctively draws out the revolver and begins firing at the Arab.

Throughout the trial, Meursault grows exasperated, feels confused, becomes spellbound, and appears dazed. He cannot comprehend how his act of not insisting on having a last look at his mother’s face or not shedding a single tear at her funeral, could have a bearing on his own case. “In our society any man who does not cry at his mother’s funeral is liable to be condemned to death.” The court calls into question every possible tangential reason—from the choice of Meursault’s friends to his isolated behaviour—to justify the actions of a sociopath and a maverick.

Some critics have also explored The Stranger employing the lens of existentialism. By engaging in a microscopic dissection of Meursault’s inveterate detachment and a strangely benign relationship with death, such critics strive to demonstrate how the themes of existentialism resonate and reverberate in contemporary culture. A culture that is emblematic of absurdity. The original title of the book in French, L’Étranger, has by itself in isolation spawned a plethora of theories and explanations. Referring to a person or an object that is unfamiliar or does not belong, the title can also refer to a stranger from another country. Riding on this theme, the popular critic Kamel Doud, embarked on an extraordinary ‘retelling’ of the book giving it a post-colonial hue.

Harun Uld el-Assas, the deceased Arab’s sibling, narrates Doud’s story. Doud gives Meursault’s victim a name – Musa – thereby lifting the reader from the ideology of the absurd and firmly placing her into the domain of reality. 

Meursault finally reconciles to the fact that absurdism may in fact represent a quality of normalcy as he contemplates his sentence: “for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself-so like a brother, really-! I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again. For everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate.”

The Stranger – A vintage writer at the peak of his magnificent prowess!