Wednesday, November 16, 2011

What words would best describe the main character's tone in The Stranger by Albert Camus?

Monsieur
Meursault's tone is generally dispassionate, unemotional, impassive, unperturbed and
self-possessed.

Examples that support these adjectives include the novel's
opening lines:

Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday; I
can't be sure.

The death of a parent is usually a
watershed moment in a person's life, but Meursault is virtually unmoved by her death and only
feels slightly self-conscious when he realizes that people are judging him for his lack of
emotion.

Even when Meursault kills the Arab on the beach, his first thought
is:

I had shattered the harmony of the day


which would, by most people's estimation, be a hugely understated
reaction to taking another person's life.

Even when he faces his own
impending execution, Meursault's tone is rather expressionless. He says,


I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world.


In a very telling confession that immediately follows this line,
Meursault finds the indifferent world much like himself.

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