Bhaskara 1

Vinay Bhaskara

Mr. Anagbo

AP English 12

28 November 2012

Debunking the False Assumptions Inherent in Meursault’s Murder Conviction

The sound of four gunshots rings out. A man had walked down a beach, came upon an

armed enemy and killed the enemy. Is this a case of cold-blooded murder? While a superficial

consideration of Meursault’s character traits conveys the impression that he is a man with no

conscience who committed premeditated murder, in reality it is his low level of emotional

maturity and that is confused with lack of conscience. When viewed through the prism of a

combination of stunted emotions, loneliness, and general desensitization to violence, Meursault

in fact does have a conscience. Moreover, because of his limited emotional development and the

course of event preceding it, Meursault’s crime is in fact legally a crime of passion (traditionally

denoted as voluntary manslaughter or third degree murder in the United States).

The entire misinterpretation of Meursault’s character and actions stems primarily from

his own lack of emotional maturity, which is perceived by the rest of society as evidence of

Meursault’s uncaring lack of conscience. In reality, Meursault’s emotional mindset is akin to that

of a child, or more accurately a confused and lonely teenager. At his core, Meursault is unsure of

how to deal with emotionally complex situations, thus his response to such challenges is

typically to ignore the source of the conflict, and in certain cases drive it away. Meursault’s

clipped and detached diction and language when describing his interpersonal interactions as well

as his terse style of dialogue serve as a “macro”- level example of Meursault’s inability to

effectively deal with emotions. Several of the interactions that Meursault has with supporting

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characters, from his convoluted friendship with Raymond to his comforting of Salamano after

the disappearance of the older man’s dog, are quite complex and emotion-intensive. Yet it is

precisely these events that Meursault chooses to describe with the most nonchalant and detached

language, while simultaneously ascribing lusciously descriptive diction and similes to mundane

inanimate objects like the “shiny pulp” of newly lain tar and the “glossy black hat” that “looked

like a lump” of the same sticky tar (Camus 5-15). This tendency of Meursault’s shows that he is

unwilling and unable to confront his own feelings and that Meursault instead prefers to seek

refuge in the banal. But the evidence of Meursault’s stunted emotional development is not

limited to the general and macro-level. In fact, in each of his major interactions with his peers,

Meursault’s inability to effectively deal with his emotions shines through. Perhaps the best

example is his baffling friendship with Raymond:

The word around the neighborhood is that he lives off women. But if you ask him what

his job is, he says he’s a “warehouse guard.” Generally speaking, he’s not very popular.

But he often talks to me, and sometimes stops by my place for a minute, because I listen

to him. As a matter of fact, I find what he says quite interesting. Besides, I don’t have any

reason not to talk to him. His name is Sintès; Raymond Sintès (Camus 28).

Even when Raymond is first introduced, Meursault himself admits to the characteristics which

make Raymond repugnant to the rest of society. Yet especially when it is viewed in concert with

the general lack of social interaction experienced by Meursault up until that point in the novel, it

becomes equally evident that Meursault chooses to befriend Raymond not because of the second

man’s qualifications as a friend, but simply for lack of better options. In particular, the phrase,

“Besides, I don’t have any reason not to talk to him,” is indicative of a man who is just desperate

enough for conversation and companionship that he will associate with a veritable social pariah.

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The loneliness behind Meursault’s initial decision is also evidenced by his description of social

life on the town that almost immediately precedes the fateful introduction of Raymond. In his

description of the social scene that occurs on a square after a local football match and Sunday

matinee film are completed, Meursalt imbues his seemingly dispassionate retelling with a tone of

bittersweet longing, which is evidenced by the tense emotional backdrop he induces with his

lengthy description of dark rain clouds hanging over the scene, as well as his tiredness and

stiffness at the end of the description. The last line of the chapter also illustrates the depth of his

emotional detachment. When Meursault reveals that, “Maman was buried now… and… really,

nothing had changed,” it is further indication of his isolation (Camus 23-24).

Some time after Raymond invites Meursault in for dinner, Meursault witnesses first hand

Raymond’s moral depravity when he sees Raymond beating his lover on the mere suspicion of

infidelity. Yet when the two meet afterwards, Meursault doesn’t even question Raymond’s

mistakes and instead offers to speak on Raymond’s behalf and acts as an “enabler” of

Raymond’s misdeed (a fundamental lack of respect for women). At the end of that evening, the

following report from Meursault is telling, “So we took our time getting back, him telling me

how glad he was that he’d been able to give the woman what she deserved. I found him very

friendly with me and I thought it was a nice moment (Camus 38).” The fact that Meursault’s

primary takeaway from such a disturbing statement by Raymond was Raymond’s general

amiability shows that Meursault is desperate enough for companionship that he is willing to

overlook almost any character flaw.

The confused tenor of Meursault’s emotions is also displayed in his confusing romantic

relationship with Marie. When he first meets Marie and throughout the novel, Meursalt attempts

to play off their relationship as purely sexual. However, the great degree of confusion that

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Meursalt displays whenever he interacts with Marie is far more characteristic of a first romantic

relationship; he displays the same mix of awkwardness and reluctance often experienced in the

apocryphal teenaged romances commonly portrayed in Western popular culture. For example,

even just after their first sexual encounter, Meursault shows a remarkable degree of attachment

to Marie: “I remembered that it was Sunday and that bothered me: I don’t like Sundays. So I

rolled over and tried to find the salty smell Marie’s hair had left on the pillow, and slept until

10.” Meursault seeks comfort in the physical indicators of Marie’s presence even after her

departure, and uses it to overcome his gee: Given that the two had just met intimately for the first

time, this immediate level of comfort is an early telltale sign of emotional attachment being

formed (Camus 21). As their liason progresses, the intensity of Meursault’s feelings for Marie

increases in concert, though he attempts to hide this sentiment. In their next described encounter,

he fumblingly denies being in love with Marie, yet he invites her for a post-coital meal. And

after witnessing Marie’s disappointment on his denial of love, he seizes upon her next random

action to make up for that disappointment in part, “A minute later she asked me if I loved her. I

told her it didn’t mean anything but that I didn’t think so. She looked sad. But as we were fixing

lunch and for no apparent reason, she laughed in such a way that I kissed her (Camus 35).” Such

attunement to Marie’s feelings is an indicator of romantic attachment. His response to Marie’s

marriage proposal further along is also indicative of his confusion and inability to come to terms

with his own romantic feelings. Absent such feelings, Meursault would simply reject Marie’s

proposal out of hand. But because he does have a degree of romantic concern for Marie, he

instead vacillates between denying his romantic feelings and committing to marriage at the blink

of an eye. When he thoughtlessly commits to marrying Marie without considering the

implications of his acceptance, it is evidence that he lacks emotional maturity. On the eve of his

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fateful trip to the beach with Raymond, Marie once again makes Meursault feel better in an

uncomfortable situation: “Once out in the street, because I was so tired and also because we

hadn’t opened the blinds, the day, already bright with sun, hit me like a slap in the face. Marie

was jumping with joy and kept on saying what a beautiful day it was. I felt a little better and I

noticed that I was hungry (Camus 47).” Even by the end of the novel, facing his own death,

Meursalt refuses to admit to his feelings for Marie. But in reality, when he admits that he tries to

see Marie’s face in the stone wall while imprisoned, Meursault is subconsciously expressing his

romantic feeling:

This roused me a little. I informed him that I'd been staring at those walls for months;

there was nobody, nothing in the world, I knew better than I knew them. And once upon a

time, perhaps, I used to try to see a face. But it was a sun-gold face, lit up with desire—

Marie's face. I had no luck; I'd never seen it, and now I'd given up trying. Indeed, I'd

never seen anything “taking form,” as he called it, against those gray walls (Camus 119).

Meursault’s inability to come to grips with his feelings for Marie are a prime example of his lack

of emotional maturity, as his pursuit of friendship with Raymond simply for the sake of having a

friend (rather than because of any merit on Raymond’s part).

Any judgment of Meursault’s conscience must also be tempered by this knowledge of his

emotional immaturity. To begin with, it is important to understand exactly the definition of

conscience. According to the dictionary, the precise definition of conscience is “an aptitude,

faculty, intuition or judgment of the intellect that distinguishes right from wrong.” There are two

critical components of that definition, one implicit, the other explicit. The implicit condition is

that for one to have a conscience, he or she need only know the difference between right and

wrong. It is not necessary that he or she never do anything wrong, but simply be able to

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distinguish between right and wrong. Throughout the novel, many of the examples cited as

examples of Meursault’s lack of conscience in fact stem from his emotional timidity and

loneliness. One of the key evidence points used in the trial to “prove” Meursalt’s” lack of

conscience, and thus by extension premeditation of murder, is Meursault’s supposed

abandonment of his mother to the home.

And yet, he made bold to say, the horror that even the crime of parricide inspired in him

paled beside the loathing inspired by my callousness. “This man, who is morally guilty of

his mother's death, is no less unfit to have a place in the community than that other man

who did to death the father that begat him. And, indeed, the one crime led on to the

other; the first of these two criminals, the man in the dock, set a precedent, if I may put it

so, and authorized the second crime. Yes, gentlemen, I am convinced (Camus 101-102).

Yet if one were to actually investigate the rationale behind Meursault’s supposed moral

complicity in his mother’s death, the result would be far more nuanced. It turns out, that

Meursault’s “abandonment” of his mother to the home and neglect once she entered was in fact

just his method of dealing with his mother’s emotional outbursts. Meursault was afraid of

dealing with his mother’s melancholy, so he tried to push her further and further away to

minimize the effort on his part: “It was true. When we lived together, Maman used to spend her

time following me with her eyes, not saying a thing. For the first few days she was at the home

she cried a lot. But that was because she wasn’t used to it. A few months later and she would

have cried if she’d been taken out (Camus 5). Furthermore, the dispassionate manner in which

Meursault tends to describe the memories of his mother, and the characterization of his mother as

“following” Meursault “with her eyes” implies that Meursault though his mother to be detached

as well, almost neglectful. In a manner of speaking, the line at the end of the first chapter, “one

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more Sunday was over, that Maman was buried now, that I was going back to work, and that,

really, nothing had changed (Camus 24),” perfectly sums up Meursault’s view of his mother; she

did not affect his life, perhaps because Meursault would not allow her to do so. In the case of his

mother, Meursault’s conception of right and wrong is warped by the emotional wall he built

between them, which means that he does not feel that sending Maman to the home and not

outwardly mourning her death is morally wrong, even if that is the consensus of the rest of

society. Yet this is not evidence of a lack of conscience, but rather of a conscience tinged by

emotional rigidity. In fact, in Meursault’s view, he probably did not do the “wrong” thing and

simply abandon his mother when she could no longer live with him but rather did the right thing

by ensuring that she was taken care of, at least materially.

The other major event(s) used to support his lack of conscience are the series of amoral

actions on the part of Raymond which Meursault seemingly accepts without any reticience and

even participates in:

Then he came to the subject of Raymond. It seemed to me that his way of treating the

facts showed a certain shrewdness. All he said sounded quite plausible. I'd written the

letter in collusion with Raymond so as to entice his mistress to his room and subject her

to ill-treatment by a man “of more than dubious reputation.” Then, on the beach, I'd

provoked a brawl with Raymond's enemies, in the course of which Raymond was

wounded. I'd asked him for his revolver and gone back by myself with the intention of

using it. Then I'd shot the Arab. After the first shot I waited. Then, “to be certain of

making a good job of it,” I fired four more shots deliberately, point-blank, and in cold

blood, at my victim (Camus 99).

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Yet the prosecutor’s simplistic and flawed analysis excludes a critical data point; Meursault’s

loneliness and lack of emotional understanding. Meursault’s participation in all of Raymond’s

schemes are primarily driven by Meursault’s desire to keep a new friend. For example, during

Raymond’s entire diatribe about the perceived infidelity of his mistress, Meursault responds not

with shock and horror, but rather chooses to ignore Raymond’s reviling behavior:

“There's a girl behind it—as usual. We slept together pretty regular. I was keeping her,

as a matter of fact, and she cost me a tidy sum. That fellow I knocked down is her

brother.” Noticing that I said nothing, he added that he knew what the neighbors said

about him, but it was a filthy lie. He had his principles like everybody else, and a job in a

warehouse…. I said I hadn't any, but I'd found it interesting…. Did I think she really had

done him dirt? I had to admit it looked like that. Then he asked me if I didn't think she

should be punished and what I'd do if I were in his shoes. I told him one could never be

quite sure how to act in such cases, but I quite understood his wanting her to suffer for it

(Camus 29-30).

By this point, Meursault is so desperate for conversation and companionship that he is willing to

subjugate his own conscience in order to please Raymond and maintain their burgeoning

friendship. One must temper all judgment of Meursault’s future misdeeds on behalf of Raymond,

whether it be writing the letter to Raymond’s lover, acting as a bystander when Raymond beats

her mercilessly, or subsequently testifying on Raymond’s behalf as a character witness, by

understanding that his conception of right and wrong is warped by the nature of his friendship

with Raymond. Once again, this is not evidence that Meursault lacks a conscience, but rather

evidence that his conscience does not fit the mores of the rest of society. Moreover, there are

direct examples of Merusault’s conscience scattered throughout the book. But in particular, his

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interaction with Salamano, in which Meursault is able to subtly respond to Salamano’s emotional

cues in comforting the older man over the disappearance of his dog, is powerful evidence of the

existence of a conscience. Remember, a conscience is “an aptitude, faculty, intuition or judgment

of the intellect that distinguishes right from wrong.” But to judge whether or not a person has a

sense of right or wrong, one must also consider his or her societal surroundings. Much of what is

termed right or wrong is in fact a societal construct; one hundred thousand years ago, no one

would have batted an eye at a man or a woman roaming naked, yet in modern times this behavior

is considered erroneous except in special circumstances. In the context of Meursault’s society,

his delicate handling of a distraught Salamano is a far more nuanced example of doing the

correct thing and using his conscience than the simple fact that it is wrong to murder someone. If

Meursault is able to apply the rules of conscience in such an arcane and complex situation, it

implies that he does in fact have a conscience (Camus 43-44).

Conscience does depend heavily on context as well; the context of the society in which a

person’s actions take place. Take for example, violence. In modern times, it would be frowned

upon for a man to violently assault a romantic rival, yet in the time of the Mongols; Genghis

Khan would have been perfectly justified in doing so. It is thus important to judge Meursault’s

conscience, or lack thereof, within the context of his societal environment. By extension, we can

consider the experiences of the author, Albert Camus, in French Algeria because the novel is set

in the same locale at the same time period, and Meursault is in a lot of ways an extension of

Camus himself. Thus we must consider the world in which Camus was writing this novel. Albert

Camus spent the first twenty or so years of his life living in the then French colony of Algeria.

Even though he was pied-noir (a white man of French descent living in Algera), Camus would

have been constantly surrounded by the activities of the brutal white minority leadership in the

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colony. Algeria, like most European colonies in Africa at the time, was governed like a police

state, with a small cadre of influential whites holding power under the guise of “civilization.”

Despite this moniker, most of the Algerians had few civil rights, and most were helpless against

the ruthless machine that was the French colonial government. Relative to the experiences of the

rest of Africa perhaps, Algeria managed to escape the worst possible fate. But in absolute,

nominal terms, most of the atrocities that characterized colonial rule around the world occurred

often in Algeria. Public beatings and even murders by the police and whites were common, and

the police were seen as much a force of evil as keepers of the peace. Meursault even hints at this

dichotomy when Marie asks him to go and get a cop as Raymond is beating his own mistress

across the hall, “She asked me to go find a policeman, but I told her I didn’t like cops.”

Traditionally, those who express fear of the police are criminals, yet Meursault is shown to have

been a model citizen, at least legally, through the first third of the book. The answer, of course is

that he witnesses on a daily basis the brutality of the Algerian police. For example, during

Raymond’s argument with the policeman, Raymond attempts to affect a nonchalant and uncaring

demeanor, “Take that cigarette out of your mouth when you’re talking to me,” the cop said.

Raymond hesitated, looked at me, and took a drag on his cigarette. Right then the cop slapped

him- a thick heavy smack right across the face. The cigarette went flying across the landing

(Camus 36).” Even when dealing with such a repugnant crime and such disrespect from the

perpetrator, no policeman should ever physically harm a suspect lacking a threat to his or her

own life. This seemingly mundane occurrence perfectly typifies the state of heightened violence

that existed in French Algeria, much of it officially sanctioned by the government. In that kind of

environment, where brutality and violence are verbally maligned, yet publicly acceptable, it is

very easy for a resident to become desensitized to violence. Conscience is ultimately the ability

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to determine right and wrong within the context of an individual’s societal surroundings. In an

environment where violence is used without consequence by so many, it is little wonder that a

man’s conscience can evolve to allow violence, even murder. Once again, the contextual

acceptance of violence simply alters the character of Meursault’s conscience; it does not mean

that he lacks one entirely. Rather Meursault allows for violence after provocation. Near the end

of Part One, before Meursault kills the Arab, he and Raymond come upon the pair of Arabs after

Raymond has been stabbed and subsequently treated. At that point, it is Meursault who precludes

Raymond from committing murder, telling him, “Right. But if he doesn’t draw his knife, you

can’t shoot (Camus 56).” This simple statement on Meursault’s part should put to rest any chatter

about his lack of conscience – Meursault explicitly states that murder without justification is

wrong. While he may not possess the most refined and developed conscience, the clear mental

faculty of distinguishing between right and wrong is present in Meursault. In fact, when one

judges Meursault’s conscience through the lenses of his lacking emotional maturity and

desensitization to violence, its existence

Thus the basic argument used to convict Meursault of premeditated murder and condemn

him to his death is falsified and unjustified. Moreover, a simple retelling of the events leading up

to the Arab’s murder is enough to debunk this myth, though that conclusion is reached with the

benefit of an omniscience offered to the readers that could not have been replicated by the jurors.

From a legal point of view, for the murder to have been premeditated, the crime has to have been

committed “after planning or "lying in wait" for the victim.” Yet according to Meursault he did

not set out with the intention of killing the Arab. In fact, right until the very moment that he sees

the Arab, Meursault is focused on dealing with the stress of Raymond and Masson’s fight with

the pair of Arabs: “From a distance I could see the small, dark mass of rock surrounded by a

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blinding halo of light and sea spray. I was thinking of the cool spring behind the rock. I wanted

to hear the murmur of its water again, to escape the sun and the strain and the women’s tears, and

to find shade and rest again at last (Camus 57). Given his forthright nature throughout the novel

there is little reason to doubt the veracity of Meursault’s recollection, and thus his story can be

taken at face value. With that in mind, it becomes clear that Meursault’s murder could not have

been premeditated since the entire genesis of the murder from conception (the idea) to

completion (killing the Arab), occurs in the spur of the moment. Meursault had no way of

knowing whether or not the Arab would still be at the Spring, he was simply trying to escape

from his own complex emotions. In fact, that last point is critical in distinguishing that

Meursault’s crime was a crime of passion, rather than a murder of convenience (also known as

second degree murder). In Meursault’s fragile and underdeveloped emotional state, his

friendship with Raymond was a critical one. And just a few hours before the fateful murder, the

Arab had stabbed and threatened Raymond in a fight started by one of the Arabs. In a subsequent

scene, Raymond returns after being patched up at the hospital, yet it is Meursault who plays the

pacifist, and keeps Raymond from fighting the Arab, partially out of concern for Raymond.

Under the framework of Meursault’s childish and stunted emotions, the murder of the Arab is in

fact a crime of passion, in which Meursault is driven by a fit of concern for his friend’s safety

and a desire to strike back against someone that has done Raymond harm. In the moments before

he shoots and kills the Arab, Meursault displays the typical signs of his emotional confusion.

Throughout the novel, a common motif is the idea of a malignant sun “beating down” upon or

“hitting” Meursault’s face “like a slap.” What is interesting to note, is that the primary

occurrence of this motif is during or after a period in which Meursault’s emotional rigidity is

challenged. The refrain appears during Maman’s funeral, after his meet-ups with Marie, and after

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he interacts with Salamano and the dog. Thus in the period immediately following the second

interaction with the Arab, Meursault is in a state of heightened emotional discomfort, which

manifests itself through his physical description of the sun and his other surroundings:

The sea gasped for air with each shallow, stifled little wave that broke on the sand. I was

walking slowly toward the rocks and I could feel my forehead swelling under the sun. All

that heat was pressing down on me and making it hard for me to go on. And every time I

felt a blast of its hot breath strike my face, I gritted my teeth, clenched my fists in my

trouser pockets and strained every nerve in order to overcome the sun and the thick

drunkenness it was spilling over me. With every blade of light that flashed off the sand,

from a bleached shell or a piece of broken glass, my jaws tightened. I walked for a long

time (Camus 57).

The imagery presented in this section is used to build up the cascading emotional tension welling

up in Meursault. Each sentence personifies the inanimate enivironment around Meursault as

physically attacking him, such as the blast of “hot breath striking” his face or the “blade of light”

that strikes him. This bellicose imagery suggests that as Meursault walks, he is slowly and

slowly becoming more aggravated, which plays out in the subsequent passage when he admits

for the first time in the course of the novel that he is trying to escape a scene of emotional

tension. By the time Meursault comes upon the Arab, he is already in a heightened emotional

state. Yet even then, his first thought is not towards murder, but rather a prescient anxiety, “It

had occurred to me that all I had to do was turn around and that would be the end of it.” Yet at

that point he sees the Arab laughing, and then almost immediately, the sun reminds him of the

“day [he’d] buried Maman.” The allusion to his mother at that critical juncture is a testament to

his emotional confusion and dysfunction in the heat of the moment. Once again, it is important to

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consider the legal definition of a crime of passion. A crime of passion or voluntary manslaughter

is, “an intentional killing in which the offender had no prior intent to kill, such as a killing that

occurs in the "heat of passion." The circumstances leading to the killing must be the kind that

would cause a reasonable person to become emotionally or mentally disturbed (“voluntary

manslaughter”).” While the circumstances surrounding Meursault’s crimes do not fit the

popularized notion of crimes of passion typified by OJ Simpson and Othello, when viewed

through the lens of his limited emotional maturity, it is equally clear that the set of events

preceding his murder of the Arab most certainly caused Meursault to become emotionally

disturbed. In fact, the final signal that sends Meursault over the proverbial edge of the cliff

occurs when the Arab draws his knife. Keeping in mind that this very knife was used to skewer

one of Meursault’s closest friends and induce a set of poignant and powerful injuries in

Raymond, the knife likely symbolizes to Meursault the threat the Arab poses to his hegemony

with Raymond. In fact the diction used by Meursault to describe the knife’s affect on his psyche

alludes to this fact with the subtle combination of caked tears to symbolize his sadness as well as

the “scorching blade slashing at [his] stinging eyes” to symbolize the threat posed by the knife.

This passage represents the apex of Meursault’s emotional conflict and tension throughout the

novel, and thus satisfies the condition of emotional disturbance required for Meursault’s crime to

be voluntary manslaughter.

Throughout the course of history, there are several analogous cases to Meursault’s false

conviction. Whether it’s the Salem Witch Trials, the Spanish Inquisition, or Stalin’s Great

Purges, society has a tendency to strike out at those who are different and/or those who do not

conform to societal mores. Though Meursault is clearly mentally proficient, his case perhaps best

parallels the fate of the mentally retarded historically in the West who were shut away from the

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rest of society because they could not meet artificial societal standards for intelligence. Similarly,

Meursault is falsely condemned to death for his inability to meet the emotional expectations of

the society around him, rather than for his actual crime. To once again view Meursault as an

extension of Camus, perhaps the ending of The Stranger is Camus’ way of expressing his

frustration at his own alienation and isolation from his intellectual peers because of his radical

philosophy of absurdism. Meursault is thus not a man without a conscience who commits

premeditated murder, but rather a man whose lack of emotional development, loneliness, and

desensitization of violence create in him a conscience that differs from the societal norm which

allows him to then commit a crime of passion in the spur of the moment.

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Sources

"Albert Camus - Biography". Nobelprize.org. 28 Nov 2012

Camus, Albert. The Stranger. New York, NY: Vintage International, 1989. Print.

“conscience." Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, 2011. Web. 8 May 2011.

"first degree murder." Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, 2011. Web. 8 May 2011.

"second degree murder." Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, 2011. Web. 8 May 2011.

"voluntary manslaughter." Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, 2011. Web. 8 May 2011.