The Stranger by Albert Camus

Albert Camus's second novel, The Stranger (L'ÉTRANGER), appeared firstly in Algeria in 1942. The protagonist of this novel, Mersault, is portrayed as an emotionless character, who is not very sociable with his surrounding and not even with his own mother. In this novel, we have Mersault as a narrator and he describes things as he sees them, and expresses his own emotional state, truthfully and directly.

The beginning of this novel is quite interesting since Mersault receives a short telegram about his mother's death, from which he couldn't know for sure on which day she passed away: "YOUR MOTHER PASSED AWAY. FUNERAL TOMORROW. DEEP SYMPATHY." He did not have an intimate relationship with his mother, even when they lived together they stood in silence; hence, probably being the cause of why he did not express any kind of emotions once he received the telegram.
Mersault wasn't a very sociable person. He avoided conversations every time he was surrounded by people, or when he was asked something he nodded to "cut things short. [He] wasn't in a mood for talking." Even though his mother died, Mersault continued with his daily life, but of course he went along with the routine of the funeral. In contrast to other people in the funeral that wept about their lost friend, Mersault seemed confused, wondering is his mother actually meant something to them or are they just acting like a person is supposed to act in a funeral.
In my opinion, Mersault is a direct kind of person who acts as he feels, with no pretends. His relationship with his mother, if we can call a relationship since they weren’t close with each other, led to expressing no feelings because he did not see her for a long period of time; and hence, we can conclude that his mother was only a “parent figure” in his life. Moreover, he couldn’t miss or cry for his mother just because she died, because he probably did not miss her when she was far away from him and alive.
Occasionally, Mersault would say to people that it’s not his fault about his mother’s death, by which it may seem that he is feeling an inner guilt and he is an a state of denial that it wasn’t his fault, it wasn’t. He probably feels guilty that he hasn’t been around his mother when she needed her, but rather being far away minding his own business. Therefore, even though he displays no emotions we cannot say that he is completely emotionless, but rather, he displays his own feelings in a strange way. The protagonist tried to avoid other people’s questions about his mother’s death, so in the next day he didn’t went to the usual restaurant, Celeste’s, but instead, he went for a swim where he meets Maria. They spent the day together, continuing watching a late comedic movie, and afterwards, spending the night together. Additionally, we can also see here that the first attraction towards Marie was not emotional attraction, but rather only physical.
When he went back to his apartment, he realized that nothing had changed even though his mother had died. He continued with his routine life, daily, feeling like nothing had occurred. Mersault didn’t know his neighbors very well, and once he met Raymond Sintes, the two started to talk about their own personal life.
I am excited to see where the life of the main protagonist’s goes on, and to see how he confronts the situations with Maria, Raymond, and other characters to come in the novel “The stranger.”