The Stranger

Camus's existentialist masterpiece about Meursault, a man who commits a senseless murder and faces the absurdity of existence.

Meursault, a young Frenchman living in Algeria, receives word that his mother has died. At the funeral, he shows no emotion, smokes a cigarette, and drinks coffee. A few days later, while at the beach with friends, he shoots an Arab man—apparently for no reason other than that the sun was in his eyes.

Camus uses Meursault's story to explore the fundamental absurdity of human existence. Meursault is indifferent to the social conventions that govern other people's lives—he feels neither grief at his mother's death nor remorse for the murder. This emotional detachment makes him a stranger to the society around him, but Camus suggests that Meursault's honesty about life's meaninglessness is more authentic than others' self-deceptions.

The novel's two parts mirror each other: the first chronicles the events leading to the murder, while the second details Meursault's trial and imprisonment. In the courtroom, society puts Meursault on trial not just for murder, but for his failure to grieve his mother properly, for his unconventional behavior, for his refusal to pretend that life has inherent meaning.

Camus's prose style is deliberately flat and emotionless, reflecting Meursault's psychological state. The famous opening line—"Mother died today"—immediately establishes the narrator's emotional distance from events that should be profound. This stylistic choice forces readers to confront their own assumptions about how people should think and feel.

The novel's conclusion, where Meursault finally accepts his fate and finds a kind of peace in his rebellion against society's expectations, represents Camus's vision of authentic existence in an absurd world. The Stranger remains a cornerstone of existentialist literature and 20th-century fiction.