The Stranger by Albert Camus is a reflective journey for the readers to meditate over the warmth of their relationships. The story begins by portraying the doubt felt by the protagonist about the timing of his mother’s death: “Mother died today. Or, maybe, yesterday; I can’t be sure. The telegram from home says, Your mother passed away. FUNERAL TOMORROW. DEEP SYMPATHY. Which leaves the matter doubtful; it could have been yesterday”. The readers can feel the life of a man who is robotic. He is in a situation where his mother’s death becomes nothing but as casual as any other deaths.
The author has given a detailed description of the preparation of the burial. He describes how surroundings create strangeness after seeing a few people around him whom he had never met. There is an incident where the undertaker’s man had a conversation with the protagonist.
After a while, he asked: “Is it your mother we’re burying?”
“Yes,” I said again.
“What was her age?”
“Well, she was getting on.” As a matter of fact, I didn’t know exactly
how old she was.
The author clearly takes the readers to a socially pessimistic world where no one can find any meaning for their social life.
In the second chapter, Camus is trying to take her co-worker Marie to a movie, and even there, he emphasizes that his mother died, but it has nothing to do with his personal fun times. He secludes himself from his mother. He clearly invites the readers to reexamine the relationships that we consider valuable.
“I explained that my mother had died. “When?” she asked, and I said, “Yesterday.” She made no remark, though I thought she shrank away a little. I was just going to explain to her that it wasn’t my fault.”
Camus ends the second chapter with the following notes, which clearly indicates his philosophy of life: ‘ It occurred to me that somehow I’d gotten through
another Sunday, that Mother now was buried, and tomorrow I’ll be going
back to work as usual. Really, nothing in my life had changed.”
In the coming chapters, the author explains how quickly he changed his mindset and he also explains the beautiful moments he spent with Marie, his coworker. In the fourth chapter, Camus describes, “She was wearing one of my pajama suits and had the sleeves rolled up. When she laughed, I wanted her again.
A moment later, she asked me if I loved her. I said that sort of question had
no meaning, really, but I supposed I didn’t. She looked sad for a bit, but
when we were getting our lunch ready, she brightened up and started
laughing, and when she laughs, I always want to kiss her.
Camus slowly started to get busy with his daily activities. He even found time to console his neighbor Salamano, who lost his dog, but seldom thought about the loss of his own mother. Camus clearly portrays the modern hypocrisy of man, where one easily finds substitutes. He advised Salamano to buy a new dog, but it was not an easy decision for Salamano.
In the fifth chapter, Camus emphasizes the inevitability of death by the words of Salamano about his dog: ” I tried hard to cure him; every mortal night after he got that skin disease, I rubbed an
ointment in. But his real trouble was old age, and there’s no cure for that.”
Part one of the book ends by narrating the fight between Raymond and the Arabs (relatives of Raymond’s ex). Camus had to participate in the fight to protect his friend Raymond.
Camus was taken to jail for murdering the Arab with a gun, and the story then describes the initial court trial and his first days at the jail. After several months, he was taken again to court for the final judgement. The judge was interested in finding out the relationship between Camus and his mom. “His first question was: Why had I sent my mother to an institution? I replied that the reason was simple: I didn’t have enough money to see that she was properly looked after at home. Then he asked if the parting hadn’t caused me distress. I explained that neither Mother nor I expected much of one another—or, for that matter, of anybody else; so both of us had gotten used to the new conditions easily enough.”
There were other conversations in the court between the lawyers and the witness, and in all of them, the focal idea was to explore the bond between Camus and his mom. At one point, his lawyer even asks the court, “Is my client on trial for having buried his mother or for killing a man?” But the prosecutor commented on his intentions: “In short, he concluded, speaking with great vehemence, “I accuse the prisoner of behaving at his mother’s funeral in a way that showed he was already a criminal at heart.”
The verdict was against him, and he was sentenced to death. A chaplain came to meet him in the cell, and he was advocating for the afterlife. Camus was not on stage to listen to him, and he insisted on getting out of the cell. The novel ends with a pessimistic yet self-reliant hope from Camus: “For me to feel less lonely, all that remained to hope was that on the day of my execution there should be a huge crowd of spectators and that they should greet me with howls of execration.”