Marginalia
Work · French

The Stranger

L'Étranger

A man who refuses to lie about his feelings is executed less for murder than for not playing society’s game.

Written 1942Form novel By Albert Camus
∞ The Absurd∞ Death∞ Morality
⇋ Compare ✶ In the Atlas

Key Ideas

The flat, sensuous present-tense voice of Meursault.

The sun as fate — the killing happens “because of the sun”.

Society tries the man’s soul, not his act.

The final opening “to the gentle indifference of the world”.

Opening line: “Aujourd’hui, maman est morte. Ou peut-être hier, je ne sais pas.” — “Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don’t know.”

Camus later summarized it — in our society any man who does not weep at his mother’s funeral risks being condemned to death. Kamel Daoud’s The Meursault Investigation (2013) retells it from the side of the nameless Arab’s brother. See Meursault.

Characters

1
French

Meursault

Camus’s “stranger” — a clerk in Algiers who will not say more than he feels, kills a man on a beach, and goes to the guillotine opening himself to “the gentle indifference of the world”.

Great Scenes

1
French

Meursault and the Chaplain

On the eve of execution, Meursault explodes at the prison chaplain’s certainty — and finds peace in the “gentle indifference of the world”.

Lines to Remember

2 quotations
Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don’t know.

Aujourd'hui, maman est morte. Ou peut-être hier, je ne sais pas.

— Meursault , The Stranger · Opening line
Context & when to use it

For emotional detachment, the flatness of the absurd.

I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world.

Je m'ouvrais pour la première fois à la tendre indifférence du monde.

— Meursault , The Stranger · Final page
Context & when to use it

For peace after giving up hope; acceptance without consolation.

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