The Stranger by Albert Camus

Quote of The Book:

"Then I fired four more times at the motionless body where the bullets lodged without leaving a trace. And it was like knocking four quick times on the door of unhappiness" pg. 59

Meursault’s mother recently passed away and
was involve with a murder due to his friend, Raymond and his mistress. When Raymond invited Meursault for dinner, he told Meursault that he suspected his mistress was cheating on him. This had caused Raymond to beat his mistress in order to punish her for her unfaithfulness. But the mistress’s Arab brother decided to go after Meursault and Raymond, which lead Meursault to shoot him.

Connections:

1. “Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don’t know. I got a telegram from the home: Mother deseased.”

What I liked about this quote was that people can easily make a connection with their own personal experience with death. It is normal for some people like Meursault to be guilty and in denial, which causes them to blame themselves that they are the reason why their significant love one is dead because this is a way of grieving for certain people.

2. “They were lost in their thoughts that they weren’t even aware of it. I even had an impression that the dead woman lying in front of them didn’t mean anything to them. But I think that that was a false impression.”

This quote reminded me of my dad’s funeral because during his funeral, I encountered a lot of people that I have never met before. My first impression was similar to Meursault’s impression because I thought that they didn’t mean anything to my dad. But later on I realized their significant friendship with my dad.

3. “Then he left, yanking at the animal, which was letting itself be dragged along, whimpering.” pg. 28

When I read this quote, the first thing that popped out of my head was animal testing because of the way this man treated his dog. he pretty much treated his dog as if it was his slave.

Visual Representation:

There was a part in the book where Meursault ran into Maria, (the girl that he used to like) at a public beach. They swim happily together and flirt with each other throughout the afternoon. Even though this was not the picture that I had in my mind, it was very close to the image that the book was trying to depict.

Questions:

What caused Meursault to shoot the Arab four times in his body, knowing that he didn’t have any reasons for killing him? If Raymond is still attracted to his mistress, why did he want to beat her up just to get even? How come Meursault didn’t want to marry Maria? Was he looking forward for this event to happened? Why was Salamano mistreating his dog?

Reflection

Overall, I really enjoyed reading this book because I was able to make a connection with some of the events that were brought up as I read. For example, the funeral, I know exactly how Meursault felt because I felt the same way as he did when my dad passed away. I really like how descriptive the story was because it allowed me to visualize how certain scene looked like in the story.