There Is No “Why” in the World#11
Albert Camus: The Stranger
Plot Summary 1
Meursault, a shipping clerk living in Algiers, receives a telegram one day informing him that his mother has died at a nursing home.
He attends the funeral, but he does not cry or show any sign of grief.
The day after the funeral, he goes to the beach, meets Marie, a former colleague, and spends the night with her after watching a comedy film together.
The world looks for the “reason” called grief that a son who has lost his mother is expected to show.
But for Meursault, it is simply another ordinary day that has passed.
1. Marriage
“It doesn’t really matter.”
Marie asked me whether I loved her.
I replied that such words didn’t really mean anything, but that I probably didn’t.
She looked sad.
But during lunch she asked again.
Marie: “Then do you want to marry me?”
Me: “If you want to, we can.”
Marie: “Marriage is a serious matter.”
Me: “No. It isn’t.”
She thought for a moment.
I told her again that if she wanted to marry me, we could.
Marie: “Why would you marry me?”
Me: “Because you want to. To me it doesn’t really matter.”
Plot Summary 2
Meursault becomes close to his neighbor Raymond.
Raymond is planning to punish his mistress, an Arab woman who has betrayed him.
Meursault agrees to act as a witness for him without much thought.
One Sunday, Meursault, Marie, and Raymond visit their friend Masson’s beach house.
There they encounter several Arab men who had been following them. A fight breaks out and Raymond is wounded by a knife.
After receiving treatment, Raymond goes back out to confront them again.
To prevent trouble, Meursault takes Raymond’s revolver.
Later, while walking alone on the beach and searching for shade, he encounters one of the Arab men again behind a rock.
2. The Beach
“The Balance of the Day Shattered”
The burning sunlight made my cheeks twitch, and I could feel sweat gathering in my eyebrows.
It was the same sun as on the day I buried my mother.
My head throbbed and every vein under my skin seemed to pulse at once.
Unable to bear the heat of that blazing halo, I stepped forward.
I knew it was foolish.
I knew that taking a step would not free me from the sun.
But still I took one step forward. Just one.
Then the Arab, no longer shading his face, drew his knife and raised it into the sunlight.
The light flashed on the steel.
The long blade seemed to stab into my forehead.
At that very moment, the sweat that had gathered on my eyebrows ran down all at once over my eyelids, forming a warm, thick veil that blurred my sight.
Because of these tears of sweat, I could see nothing.
I could only feel the cymbal-like crashing of the sun on my forehead and the blinding blade of light shooting from the knife in front of me.
That burning blade seemed to gnaw at my eyelashes and dig into my aching eyes.
It was then that everything began to sway.
The sea breathed out a deep, hot breath.
The sky seemed to open completely and pour down fire.
Every muscle in my body tightened.
My hand gripped the revolver.
The trigger was pulled.
The smooth underside of the gun’s handle struck my palm.
With a sharp and deafening sound, everything began.
I shook off the sweat and the sun.
I realized that I had shattered the balance of the day, the exceptional silence of that beach where I had been happy.
Then I fired four more shots into the fallen body.
The bullets sank into it without leaving any visible mark.
It was like knocking four more times on the door of misfortune.
Plot Summary 3
Meursault is arrested and put on trial.
The prosecutor and the judge focus less on the direct motive for the murder than on Meursault’s character.
The fact that he drank coffee and smoked at his mother’s funeral, that he did not cry, and that he watched a movie with a woman the very next day are all presented as evidence that he is a cold-blooded killer.
The courtroom becomes obsessed not with the murder itself, but with constructing a narrative that can explain the event.
3. The Courtroom
“It Was Because of the Sun”
The judge cleared his throat and quietly asked whether I had anything more to add.
I stood up and said, somewhat clumsily, that I had not intended to kill the Arab.
The presiding judge replied that this was merely a claim.
He said he had not yet fully understood the structure of my defense.
Before hearing my lawyer, he wanted me to clarify the motives that had inspired my action.
I said something that I knew might sound ridiculous.
Me: “It was… because of the sun.”
Laughter burst out in the courtroom.
The prosecutor sneered.
My lawyer shrugged in disbelief.
After being sentenced to death, Meursault spends his final days in prison.
He waits calmly for his execution without expecting an appeal or a pardon.
One day a chaplain comes to see him and urges him to repent before God and save his soul.
The priest repeatedly asks him why he rejects God.
Meursault does not feel that the question deserves an answer.
Eventually he explodes.
I don’t know why, but something inside me suddenly burst.
I began shouting at the top of my lungs.
I hurled insults at him and told him to stop talking about prayers.
I grabbed him by the collar of his cassock.
With joy and anger mixed together, I poured out everything rising from the depths of my heart.
How sure are you of those certainties of yours?
You live like a dead man.
You are not even sure that you are alive.
But I, empty-handed though I may be, am certain of myself and certain of everything.
More certain than you.
Of this life I have lived and of the death that is coming.
Yes, this is all I have.
But I hold on to this truth tightly.
I have reason.
I have always had reason.
I still have reason.
And I will always have reason.
What does it matter, my mother’s death or my own?
What use are the God you talk about, the lives people choose, or the destinies people choose?
There is only one destiny that chooses me.
Along with me it chooses the millions of privileged people who call themselves my brothers, people like you.
Everyone is special.
There are only special people.
Those others will also be condemned one day.
You too.
What difference does it make if you are executed because you did not cry at your mother’s funeral?
I was out of breath from shouting.
The guards were already pulling me away from the priest.
The priest looked at me with sad eyes.
When he left, I regained my calm.
Looking up at the showering stars, I opened my heart for the first time to the gentle indifference of the world.
Realizing that the world was so much like me, almost like a brother, I felt that I had been happy before and that I was still happy now.
For everything to be fulfilled, for me to feel less alone, all that remained was one wish.
On the day of my execution, I hoped that a large crowd of spectators would gather to greet me with cries of hatred.