The End...

...he refuses to see the priest. Why would he? He doesn't believe in God, he is going to be dead soon why  would he think and listen and talk to something/someone he doesn't believe in. The last chapters get a better view of this strange character. He just amuses me in every sense. I never liked the way people act because they have to, because the society expects us to. He just doesn't get that, that what makes him so strange, or depending on your view, so special. He goes to some sort of spiritual enlightment, when talking to the priest, and him talking crap about the heaven, and what expects us after we die, that this life is only some sort of a test that we go in order to decide one's destiny after they die. He gets mad, and realizes that the real gift is this life that we live... The real gift is outside and he wanted to experience it so bad. We don't see his end. We don't even know if the appeal happened, or what was decided. The author leaves it up to us to decide his fate, and that actually pisses me of, because I can't help but think that they killed him after all. I guess that is how optimistic you are... I enjoy The Stranger every single page, because it questions everything, it annoys us or it just make us think of the thinking patterns we are "obliged" in a way to follow, because the society expects us to. What happens if we don't is not really up to us...

The Stranger - Albert Camus

          In Global Literature last class we talked about a very unique novel by Albert Camus called The Stranger. The first three chapters of The Stranger to be honest were a bit strange. The story takes place in Algeria, and it all starts with the death of the main character Mr. Meursault's mother. There were a lot of discussions in the class on how Mr. Meursaultt is unemotional about his mother's death considering that he doesn't even know the exact date of neither her birth nor death but I am thinking differently. His emotional behavior can be explained in different versions. Maybe they had a bad history, considering the fact that even when they used to live together they barely talked to each other. Maybe the distance actually made them distant; or my favorite maybe he lived in an environment where there was no room for emotional baggage of any sort and being reserved is a part of their lonely lives. We can see that all the way through the first chapters, in the case of the lonely Mr. Salamano who hangs out with his dog all day. In the case of Marie who leaves in the morning without a single note after a night of "physical interaction", or in the case of Raymond who beats his girlfriend without any regret what so ever. It all sounds strange when you put it like that but the book itself is strange, and I like strange. To support further more my theory we have the case when Mr. Meursault helps Raymond write a love letter, he has nothing against the violence that would tear apart Raymond's mistress, in fact he participates in that violence in a way. What's even stranger are the advices people gave Raymond on how to punish his mistress  prior talking to Mr. Meursault. "Mark her" they suggested, like it was a perfectly normal thing to do to a human being.

          I don't think that Meursault is unemotional or a bad person, as far as I can tell from these three chapter the whole society was like that, lonely, miserable and unemotional to one another. I hope we will find out why in the preceding chapters. I'm curious and I like it. :)