As the title indicates, this blog entry will be less organized than my typical one. That's okay. That's what the blogs are for, and that's the nature of The Stranger. It's interesting that despite being one of the less surreal novels that we've dealt with in both content and style, it's made me the least sure of myself. At least with Kafka, I knew how to feel about most of it, and I had relatively straightforward thoughts. With The Stranger, I find myself having these kind of thoughts (NSFW language on the link), that Louis C.K. calls "of course, but maybe..." thoughts. The Stranger doesn't make them seem that weird until we think about them though. "Of course killing's wrong. But maybe, it's okay in Meursault's case?"
Another interesting feature of the second half of the book is that Meursault doesn't really seem normal emotionally until the trial, where his life is scrutinized by the court. I thought in the first part that he did seem psychopathic in his complete lack of empathy, judgment of himself or others, or morality, as far as we can tell at that point. These are traits of psychopaths—it doesn't mean he's a danger to society, it just means he's abnormal emotionally to a pretty severe extent, as we can see with his helping Raymond, etc. It doesn't mean he's violent; there's a surprisingly high number of CEOs who are categorized as psychopaths, and have not killed anyone or any such behavior. Meursault is charismatic and interesting because of his lack of emotion and judgment of others. We're captivated by his behavior such as laying in bed smoking "for a few hours" and his strange response to his mother's death. Yet at the end of the novel, we see him showing more emotion. In the last chapter he begins by again being distant but mentioning (though not really conveying) his extreme sadness and joy as he thinks about whether his appeal will go through or not. His breakdown with the chaplain at the end as well is an extreme indicator of his rather repressed emotion.
Some thoughts on the trial: It's strange how Meursault is tried not really on the basis of his murder but on his response to his mother's death. I wouldn't agree if the court had him executed for his murder of the Arab,—I'm strongly against the death penalty—but I could understand. I can't understand their trying him solely on his not mourning his mother's death, and not mentioning the killing of the Arab except to decide that because he didn't properly show emotion for the death of his mother, he must have premeditated the crime. The prosecution also claims he's guilty of murdering his mother for sending her to a state funded home when he was no longer financially able to support her? Meursault was right. His lawyer was not as good as the other lawyer. He seems like he's trying to fit Meursault in a box he doesn't fit in, especially in his particular case, "well, he loved his mother, and he had friends." As the judge points out after Meursault's claim the murder was an accident, at least that's a defense. His lawyer should have been contesting the facts about the premeditation of the murder, and challenging statements by the other lawyer. Claiming that the defendant is guilty of murdering his mother is not proper court practice anywhere, as far as I can tell, especially since it is blatant hyperbole for emotional effect. His lawyer didn't even really seem to listen to Meursault's case details. It seems almost like he has premade defenses based on the situation, and he said, "oh, let me get the muder defense out again." Even if he's not the one responsible for Meursault's sentence, he certainly doesn't help things any—he's assured Meursault will get a few years in prison followed by service, and instead he gets an execution.
Perhaps the trial represents what's in all of us. On the one side, we could be Meursault, and we could kill someone, just because we have a gun. On the other hand, we could be trying people based solely on our own ideals, and condemning them for different; we're just waiting for the chance. When someone who challenges our sense of meaning comes along, it really affects us. We don't want our lives to be meaningless. Just as the chaplain had this reaction to Meursault, we can see him have this reaction to the chaplain in the last chapter. We're willing to kill someone not for killing a man, but because he challenged our ideals and conventions.
I agree with your last paragraph; we all change in some way, whether it be simply our internal thoughts or it can be determined by others through our external actions, if someone comes along and challenges our values. But I don't think you can parallel this to what is happening in court in "The Stranger," because how does Meursault challenge the beliefs of the others in any way? He kills someone, but murder happens on a regular basis, and like you said, the prosecutor doesn't even seem too worried about this. Maybe Mersault's actions after his mother's death challenged the jury's traditional ideas of being in deep mourning and grief after the loss of a loved one, but Mersault didn't really *aggressively* act against these ideas in any way. He simply continued with his ordinary, typical life. And he doesn't even talk about the meaning of life before the chaplain. He thinks about it, but how would the others in the courtroom know his thoughts?
ReplyDeleteEspecially having just watched The Man Who Wasn't There, I think your points about the lawyer are especially poignant. In The Man Who Wasn't There, we have a seedy, sly lawyer named Freddy Riedenschneider. When Ed tries to admit to the murder of Big Dave, he just waves it off. "We're not going with story A, and we're not going with story B!" He instead has to come up with an entirely novel idea, that Big Dave was being blackmailed by somebody he knew from the military, and how could we be certain of anything anyways? Then, in Ed's case, he brings in a whole narrative of Ed being a "modern man," whatever that's supposed to mean. If he were to actually tell the truth, he would still be put on trial for Big Dave's murder (despite the fact that it was technically self-defense). Finally, Ed can't afford to keep paying Riedenschneider, so he has to settle for the local lawyer, who just has him try to plead guilty. That doesn't work too well either. All-in-all, the truth has very little to do with the courtroom. Instead, it's all about perceptions and appearances. In Meursault's case, it's all about how he appears to the common man. He committed the crime, and nobody questions that (here, the truth remains, at least a little). Rather, what we can debate is what it means to society.
ReplyDeleteThe last paragraph hits the nail on the head. Dezy says a similar thing in his most recent post. I remember in our very lively discussion after chapter 6 in class, I found myself being the voice that says "maybe if someone's allergic to nuts, they're supposed to die.", and I don't think that's necessarily a terrible thing to think. I think its honestly better to consider those things then to not, because they give you more insight and objectivity.
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