Justice In The Stranger By Albert Camus

Often there lies a fine line between the differences of what is “justice” and what is “law”. What may be “law” may not be accepted as “justice” to some of society, and what is “justice” may not fall under “law”, it is this confliction of what “law” is and what is “justice” that becomes prevalent towards the end of The Stranger, and deems the question as to whether true justice was given to Meursault. As respectable as it is to deem that justice was served to Meursault in regards to his crime, if it can be called that, due to the very nature of justice and law, justice was in fact not served at the end of The Stranger.
While law may hold an unbiased face and appear to be clear cut, the problem remains that its structure is open to interpretation
Unfortunately, this system has its draw backs, and these quirks in the system are beautifully illustrated in Camus’s The Stranger. Society has the habit of out casting those people who, to the majority, seem to be unusual and abnormal. We dissociate from them and come to fear that which we do not know nor understand. Meursault becomes a victim of this social exile. During the trial, it was not precisely the crime that was being judged, but rather how Meursault behaved during and immediately after the death and burial of his mother that was criticized and used as evidence of his conviction. This is seen in part two of The Stranger on page 96 where Camus writes,” ‘Come now, is my client on trial for burying his mother or for killing a man?’The spectators laughed. But the prosecutor rose to his feet again, […] ‘Indeed,’ he loudly exclaimed, ‘I accuse this man of burying his mother with crime in his heart!” Society demonized Meursault’s behavior during the period of his mother’s death due to its queer nature and its contrary behavior to society’s norms. With this being the focus of judgment, Meursault was not convicted and given the death penalty due to the crime in which he participated in, but rather the nature of his person that sealed his
Camus writes on page 84 in part two of The Stranger,” ‘You know, we’ve blown your case up a little. Summer is the slow season for the news. And your story and the parricide were the only ones worth bothering about.’ Then he pointed in the direction of the group he had just left, at a little man who looked like a fattened-up weasel. He told me that the man was a special correspondent for a Paris paper. ‘Actually, he didn’t come because of you. But since they assigned him to cover the parricide trial, they asked him to send a dispatch about your case at the same time.” It is only human nature to be drawn to drama and since summer is slow for news stations, the news blew up Meursaults case in order to attract attention and business. Since the Merusaults case was made bigger than it was, Meursault was already seen as a criminal to the public. This allowed the prosecutor of his case to take advantage of this timing, and use the built up momentum against Merusault, such as his personality, what he did during the period of his mother’s death, and the excitement generated by the media, to develop a damning argument against Merusault, that, although did not make use of much evidence, it relied strongly on pathos to sway the audience and jury and play their emotions to demonize Merusault for his unusual habits and non- conformity of societies