The Stranger By Albert Camus

Humans are little more than complex organisms reacting to stimuli in their environment. Some would argue that humans are transparent and simple; we have needs and simply seek to fulfill them. There is a specific order to our behavior and that behavior is being driven by a need or desire. Camus challenged this notion with The Stranger. In one sense he upheld the idea that we simply strive to fulfill needs. In another sense, Camus forced us to understand that sometimes there is no reason, no need being met; simply an organism reacting to stimuli. He highlighted the contradictory nature of humans with his main character, Meursault, who was stimulated by nature for better or worse. Meursault appreciated the beauty surrounding him, but was antagonized
His acclimation and acceptance of the progress of events is foreign to us humans who use expectation to seek reason and order. We see Marie’s expectation that marriage must follow love as a natural reaction to feeling. Sintes’ expectation to dole out punishment to a woman suspected of cheating as a reaction to causing him pain. Salamano's expectation that the dog must love him and stay loyal, despite daily beatings as reaction to needing companionship. We see it also in the Magistrate who expected Meursault to capitulate and admit belief in God, possibly because fear of living caused him to think a natural reaction would be to turn to God. We see it as well as in his attempts to understand why Meursault committed murder. It must have been in reaction to some provocation. His lawyer was much the same,expecting Meursault to say he loved his mother, because B must follow A and we must love the one who bore us. We humans seek this order to bring meaning to our
Salamano with his poor, mangy dog and Sintes with his girlfriend. This set us up to notice a pattern of emerging emotion in Meursault. Up to this point, we had only seen Meursault express dislike for a few things, such as cops. He began small with a kind sentiment toward Salamano when he lost his dog. Meursault moved forward and let himself contemplate marrying Marie. About swimming with her, he stated “We were happy.” These budding emotions seem to follow suit that in his environment and perhaps with the profound nature of his new emotions, a violent reaction would possibly occur, which it did in equal yet opposite force with the murder. He had no motive for the murder, no ill feeling toward the Arab, he simply reacted to the stimuli of the hot sun in an unfortunate circumstance. Meursault caused others discomfort because he didn’’t have normal human reactions, in fact, on the murder he stated, “more than sorry, I felt kind of annoyed” (pg. 70). He reacted to stimuli, but not in the expected fashion. He admitted that he didn’t think too deeply about his reactions when he maintained, “I had pretty much lost the habit of analyzing myself” (pg. 65). Even he didn’t know why he reacted the way he did to