The Stranger

After a heated debate from Monday night’s class I think I have a better understanding of The Stranger. I found it rather interesting to see other people interpret the story differently than I. Though I may not have agreed with what other people’s interpretations of the story were, or their justification behind it, it was admirable to see people take sides and defend what they interpreted. It allowed for the class to be much more enjoyable, and for me to think into my own interpretations further and question myself internally. As a matter of fact, I even swayed with some of my understandings because of other students bringing up examples of why they sided the way they did. So thank you to the class for teaching me some new things!

I can remember reading excerpts from this book back in high school in my AP English class. I never really thought much of it; much less even understand its meaning. I do admit however, that something about the excerpts did perplex me, and had me thinking about things in a different light (Not like life instances).I was however confused as to what it really meant and what I was supposed to get from it. Half of what I read in that class did that to me. It was the excerpt of the shooting of the Arab that had me thinking the most. After re-reading the entire story again it finally allowed me to tie up some loose ends. You see, when I read the excerpt I thought that it was just an instance of cold blooded murder with remorse. After reading the entire story, I see the situation from a different light. Honestly, I feel as if sun and heat is symbolic for adrenaline. I heard throughout discussion that it could be metaphoric way to describe him feeling anger, but I honestly think it was merely adrenaline. He lived in the moment, and adrenaline only exists in present time instances. You cannot feel adrenaline for no given reason. Anger you can feel for many reasons, but he had no motives behind the killing. Merely him being agitated by the sun and the heat were what drove him to the murder. I honestly think you cannot assume that he was in fact angry because he never did explicitly state that he was anywhere in the book.

 I also found interest in one student who clarified, that in French, the book was really meant to say the foreigner. I should have done more research into the book itself; but after hearing that it completely changed my view towards the book. At first I figured the “stranger” in the book was an internal thing. I figured Meursault was a stranger from himself; that he could not come to terms with his own rational thinking and feelings. As I read further, I was wrong. He knew exactly what he wanted to feel, and what he wanted out of life. He was completely fine with the way he was going through life. He knew himself, and he merely accepted it for who he was. When you take the translation as “the foreigner” you see that it is he who is separated from the society. A foreigner is known as someone that is unlike the rest of the population who surrounds them. They have different expectations, views on life, and justifications for what they do. It makes complete sense that Meursault is the foreigner because he separated himself from the typical thought processes of those around him.

I look forward to learning more about some of Camus’s writings. 

I have not read the stories to be covered in the next class, but it will be interesting to see if these stories are similar to The Stranger.