L'étranger

Hamish Hamilton Pub. (1946).

Camus' first novel, L'étranger shares the same breath on absurdity with Reflection on the Guillotine, which appears twofold in this novel: the first is his murder and the second the background of his accusation.

Meursault only murmurs at the court that he murdered the Arab because of the sun, which is not persuasive in every sense. But the mise-en-scene of the story, laid out on a nearly unilateral evolution of the stifling power of the sun, as if all happened in one day, gives much excuse for his unintentional crime. His mothers' mortuary, a bright and spotlessly clean room with whitewashed walls, was flooded with skylight. While the undertakers were working, 'the sky was already a blaze of light and the air stoking up rapidly.' That Sunday morning, when Meursault walks out, 'the glare of the morning sun hit me in the eyes like a clenched fist.' Then, the light became almost vertical and the flare from the water seared one's eyes, and the sand was hot as fire glowing red. Finally, 'the heat was beginning to scorch my cheeks, beads of sweat were gathering in my eye brows,' just like the heat at the funeral... He shot 5 times...His cell resembles the mortuary, flooded with light. After being sentenced to public decapitation at 8 PM, he remains in the darkness.

The second absurdity enters the round when he is blamed for his immorality, in particular his lack of tears at the funeral. Moreover, all he did after the funeral, such as meeting a girl and helping his neighbor, becomes enough reasons to say that he is a menace to the remaining society. His morality is attacked, not much the murder itself at the court.

Waiting for his death, he feels his heart open to the 'benign indifference of the universe' and feels like himself, happily. Cyril Connolly, who introduced this novel, interprets this moment as one's controls over his fate, even in sentenced, whereas suicide is a mere cowardice.