Blog post on THE STRANGER

In our student run discussion on the novel The Stranger written by Albert Camus, Andrew stated that he felt Meursault really didn’t show he had remorse for his mother at her funeral “Meursault doesn’t really show he care’s about the death of his mother all he wants to do is sleep. The incident doesn’t seem to phase him” (stated by Andrew.) I absolutely agree with this statement. Meurasult’s mother was an important person in his life as are all mothers, and to just brush it off as nothing is unusual. “The blood-red earth spilled over Maman’s casket, the white flesh of the roots mixed in with it, more people, voices, the village, waiting in front of a café, the incessant the nest of lights that was Algiers and I knew I was going to go to bed and sleep for twelve hours”. (pg 18) In this quote Meursault is giving the reader a visual picture of the sights and sounds around him while he is in the bus traveling through Algiers on his way to his mothers nursing home and while everything’s going on, all he can envision himself doing is going to sleep. Later on Meursault goes to his mother’s vigil and the caretaker explains to him that the casket was accidentally sealed and then proceeds to open it but is stopped by Meursault because he doesn’t want to see his mother’s body “We’ve put the cover on, but i’m supposed to unscrew the casket so you can see her, he was moving toward the casket when I stopped him. He said you don’t want to see her? I answer no he was quiet, and I was embarrassed because I felt I shouldn’t have said that”. (pg 6) the strange thing is that Meursault realizes that his request not to see his mothers body wasn’t taken so well as he states “I answered no he was quiet and I was embarrassed because I felt I shouldn’t have said that”. In a way its understandable that he didn’t want to see his mothers body because one would think that if you really loved someone it would be really uncomfortable to see them dead in a casket. But looking back on the way Meursault thinks and acts about his mothers death its hard to believe that, the reason he didn’t want to see his mother before the funeral was only because it would have been disturbing for him. It will always remain a mystery why Meursault acted the way he did when dealing with his mothers death only Albert Camus knows the real answer.