Who is this guy? Blog Post

The character of Mersault is shown to be very detached after he find out that his mother dies and he doesn't care, at the funeral he even gets frustrated over a woman crying "The woman's sighs and sobs were quieting down. She sniffled a lot. Then finally she shut up." His lack of empathy for a woman crying, at his own mothers funeral by the way, demonstrates his detachment from his emotions and from other people.

The book is written in a "listy" way that makes Mersault's life very bleak and mechanical. He goes throughout his life in monotony, weather he acted this way before his mother died is debatable. In class Sam said that his detachment was a kind of "coping mechanism" he used to ease the pain. Before this he may have been much happier and enjoyed life more, however Albert Camus made a point to start this story when the character was detached from people.

The reason he does this is to make the character of Mersault a mirror image of the reader. In most philosophy books the main character is despised and hated, but the character is a reflection of what the reader is doing wrong, then throughout the book the character will experience a change that will make him change his life for the better. A change that the author wants the reader to mimic and realize so that the reader can follow in this path.

Mersault is meant to be a reflection of "pre-enlightened" or "pre-revelation" man, this is life before we learn a valuable idea later on the book. Mersault is disconnected from everything, this is an exaggeration of how little we connect to each other, Mersault uses people for things, he uses Marie for his sexual impulses and he uses Raymond for company and friendship (and even a cheap dinner). Albert Camus is trying to say that we use people for things, not as blatantly as Mersault does but we still use people. We use our family's for guidance and support, we use friends for entertainment and support as well, we use significant others to make us feel better about ourselves etc.

Albert Camus is showing us Mersault, this detached character who uses people, as a mirror that reflects an exaggerated version of ourselves so we can see how our lives are meaningless. As is the average structure of philosophical texts, Albert Camus will teach us somthing later on in the book that will allow us to connect with people in a more real way, addressing the initial problem he states, what this revelation actually is, is still unknown.