To Love and To Be Loved

Meursault is a puzzling figure in The Stranger. We don't get much in the way of his feelings, assuming he even has them. The sense we get from him is that mostly he's just concerned with physical needs and desires. If he's tired, he wants to rest or take a nap. If he's hungry, he wants to eat. This could be in the middle of the day or the middle of a funeral. All that matters is how he feels, more or less. But, I think that's ignoring a very important desire Meursault has outside of physicality.

Meursault is a surprising social fellow, for being so weird and abnormal. He and Celeste hang out; there's Emmanuel who he jumps on the truck with; Raymond and he become "pals" quickly; Salamano regards him well after they talk about his dog; and Marie and he get along famously. Meursault hits it off with people surprisingly well, with the exception of Maman's funeral.

Really, Meursault cares a lot about being liked by people. In the courtroom, he realizes to himself that he is guilty only when he can feel the hatred of the people watching the trial. After Raymond gets injured on the beach, he doesn't go back to the house partially because of the stairs, but also because he doesn't want to face the woman inside. When they find out about what he's done, he's probably going to lose likability points, which he doesn't want. At other times, he puts on a neutral air so as to offend as few people as possible; there's no reason to make Salamano hate him just so others like him a little more, and so he disagrees when others call Salamano's relationship with his dog despicable. To him, it's interesting; not positive, but not negative either. Occasionally he will say something he doesn't mean to achieve something, like when he agrees with the magistrate to shut him up on page 69: "As always, whenever I want to get rid of someone I'm not really listening to, I made it appear as if I agreed." Although here again we see more of his activity towards his physical needs and desires, it also shows his willingness to manipulate others towards a certain result.

The interesting thing about this is that, in a way, this ability is what is on trial in the courtroom. Nobody questions that he killed the Arab. He doesn't deny it in any way. Instead, he's on trial for being so different, for not playing by the rules of the game. His ability to make people like him will either save him or break him. But, there's only so much Meursault is allowed to do to achieve this. He hardly gets to defend himself; his lawyer does all the talking and tries to convince him to say as little as possible. Meursault can't make any new friends; instead, it's up to his old ones to persuade the court that he is normal, or that they as a group do like him. The problem comes out where Meursault didn't do enough; fuss is made over his behavior at Maman's funeral and his irreverence. He didn't even cry or see her body! Whatever happened to "A man's business is his business and none of yours"?

Taking this all into account, the end of the book comes as a great shock. Completely opposite to his earlier attempts to not have people dislike him, he now wishes "that there be large crowd of spectators the day of [his] execution and that they greet [him] with cries of hate" (123). Is it enough that he flips out at the chaplain that he completely changes his world view? This total reversal seems out of place, or uncalled for. But, perhaps, his blind rage that "washed [him] clean" allowed him to see something. Perhaps, just like loving someone "doesn't really mean anything," it doesn't mean too much to hate someone too. And in this similarity, it doesn't make too much a difference which one people do to him.