Mersault As An Absurd Hero In The Stranger By Albert Camus

What is an absurd hero? An absurd hero is someone who is determined to continue living with passion even though life appears to be meaningless. It seems like one of Mersault’s passion is hanging out with his friends. In The Stranger by Albert Camus, Mersault is an absurd hero because when bad things happen in his life, he still finds a reason and passion to live and be content with his life. Mersault strives to find meaning in his life because horrible things happen to him. In the beginning he says, “Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe. I don’t know” (1). This basically shows that Mersault did not care too much when his mom died. In the book, Mersault doesn’t really show that Maman’s death affected him; he just hangs out with his friends and enjoys life. To get things off his mind, Mersault goes to the public beach to go swimming. While there, he runs into Marie Cardona, a typist in the office he works at. Marie finds out about his mother’s death but they forget about it and go to the movies. Marie seems like Mersault’s
main reason for trying to live a content life. She goes to his house a lot so they can sleep together and hang out the following days. Mersault gets arrested and put in jail for killing an Arab which he says he did not intend to do.
Shortly after, Marie comes to visit him for the first time but it is also her last time. While talking through the glass Marie says “You will be acquitted and we can go swimming again” (75). Shortly after, Marie sends Mersault a letter saying she is not allowed to visit him anymore since they are not married. Mersault waits patiently until he gets out of jail so he can be with Marie and marry her. The next summer is Mersault’s trial and he gets sentenced to execution. He wishes he was just viewing the execution because he knows that with the guillotine, you die the first time around. The only reason Mersault has for living this time is waiting to get out and hoping they don’t execute him. At the end, he realizes that there’s no way for him to get out of his execution so he just hopes people cheer for him when he’s walking to the
guillotine. Mersault is an absurd hero because he finds meaning in his life although life is meaningless. His passion for living is Marie because he really enjoys the affair they have together. Although she loves him and he doesn’t feel the same, she still sticks around. Mersault gets sentenced to execution at the end of the book so there is not any reason for him to still be content with his life but he is which makes him an absurd hero in The Stranger.