Annotated Bibliography

Stranger Annotated

The Stranger Essay

Luis Moreira

The strangers final essay

In the passage when mersault meets the care taker, Albert Camus suggests that death dosn't necessiarly mean change. He shows this throughout the passage when mersault is still thinking, and acting the same after the death of his mother. He shows that mersault dosn't change when he sees his mothers dead body.

In lines 1-5 he shows us that if it were not for his mothers death he would still be heading off to work, and it would be like a typical day for him. It would still be hard for him to get up, and he would be in the office all day, just another typical day. And he also mentions the other guys from work by saying "they must be getting up for work about this time". So I guess this means that he is in a different time zone or he is just up early.

Then in the second part of the passage he talks about meeting the care taker, and signing documents. "the caretaker came across the courtyard, and told me that the director was asking for me... He had me sign a number of documents". Then the man also says he will be attending the funeral.

Finally he asks if he wants to see his mother for the last time befor he seals the casket, and he said no. I think that he said no because he dosn't want to show his feelings/emotions, maybe if he sees his mothers dead body he will become emotional and start to cry. I think he is a type of person who keeps their emotions all bindled up, and he lets them go when nobody is around. That is probally whe he didn't want to see his mothers dead body again laying lifelessly in a casket.

I believe that this passage is important to the text because it shows us how this character really is, and how he deals with his feelings. This might help us understand one of the characters actions in a future scene. This is why this passage was important in the Book "the Strangers" by Albert Camus.

In the last page of the book “The Strangers” by Albert Camus, Mersault hopes for something out of the ordinary. He hopes that “there will be a large crowd at his execution”. This si strange because usually someone who is going to get executed would wish to die quick, and painless or die with honor, but not Mersault he wishes for a large crowd to watch him die… and for them to greet him with cries of hate.

In this passage Mersault shows a lot of emotion. For instance when he yells at the Father ( Priest), he does this out of anger, but he shows it with passion he physically drabs the Father, and yells at him, unlike when he killed the Arab man, but not like how he did with the Father. This shows a huge change in Mersault’s personality from the murder of the Arab man to now. When I saw this change in Mersault I thought “ why now, is it cause he realizes that he is going to die, so he is just letting go of all his held back emotions?”. This is what I thought about his personality change, because why else would he change. 

Then shortly after Mersault does something that he rarely does, or have done. He thinks of his Mother (Maman). As I read this I thought to myself that Albert Camus is definatley doing this to show the change in Mersault’s personality from him being emotionless to being extremely emotional, and full of feelings. But I didn’t really understand why, is it to symbolize that people change when they are in need of help or when they know that their life will shortly be coming ti an end. This made me think that maybe emotionless people like Mersault are looking for a way, or an excuse to release their held back feelings, but they don’t know how or when, until their life will shortly ending.            

In a couple of lines later Mersault says “finding it so much like myself-so like a brother, really-I felt that I had been happy, and that I was happy again”. This is what confuses me. Mersault was just angry, and now he is happy… This leads me to believe that maybe Mersault is not in a right state of mind or that he might be bipolar. I think that maybe Mersault is happy because he might see his Mother in an after life somewhere… because he did mention “ I felt ready to live it all again” this could mean two things either he is talking about living again in another life or that if he had a choice to live his same life again he would, and not change anything. Bit is that is what Mersault meant by that statement, then obviously he didn’t learn from his mistakes.    

Then finally back to where Mersault wishes to have a large group of spectators at his execution, who watch his death with cries of hate. I think that Mersault might see himself now as sort of a villan, and that he deserves to be hated by everyone for the crime that he committed (murdering the arab man). This means that Mersault might feel guilty for killing the man. So this also shows Mersault showing emotion. Mersault has changed a lot from the death of his Mother to now.           

In Albert Camus’s book “The Stranger” Mersault has changed a lot He went from being emotionless, to being full of emotions. He learned to let his emotions go. But in the end it was a little to late for Mersault because he is being executed. This book had me realize that people start to realize things when their life is going to be shortly over.