It Is Tho

I was surprised that Meursault's base E.G.O is actually fairly succinct and to the point, which is rather fitting for him. Chains of Others with imagery of Meursault being watched, judged and imprisoned is about as close to a one sentence description of The Stranger as you could get, but it's not so simple either.

The story starts with Meursault's mother dying, as I'm sure most know. He's very unconcerned or even moved whatsoever with this, and seems more interested with what he's going to do for breakfast or something after going to the funeral. During which, he's bemoaning about how hot it was and how everyone was staring at him. Despite this, if you asked Meursault if he loved his mom, he'd say yes. Probably.

The day after this, he meets a woman named Marie (knew before, briefly) and goes to the beach and movies with her and then he gets laid. He also get roped into helping a pimp write a strongly worded letter to a girl that "did him dirty" and Meursault just. Does this? No real reason to refuse, sure, why not. I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that my brain went "that's so Meursault" more than once while reading.

I don't want to waste too much text on a direct summary, but I did want to say that he actually does kinda kill that guy because of the sun. He described the heat on the beach and the rays of light in his eyes like he was in hell itself. He shoots him once after he pulls a knife (the glint of sunlight off of the blade is described like it's more damaging than an actual potential knife wound) and then after a pause shoots four more times. He shoots four extra times for no discernible reason at all.

So he's guilty as hell, sure, but not the point. The entire trial ends up turning into what is essentially a humiliation ritual where everyone from his neighbors to his pal at the restaurant he likes saying "he's fine, I guess, but he is weird, and gosh, he was getting frisky with some woman the day after his mom died? His mom who he put in a HOME by the way." The prosecutor pounces on these admissions of "strangeness" with glee, and seems almost uninterested in the actual murder itself. While Meursault does rarely express some more intense emotions before this, as he listens to people rattle off "he's...fine"s and "he seems like a self-centered person", he comes to a somber realization that everyone seems to loathe him. That same prosecutor would later go on to insinuate that Meursault is so devoid of humanity that he's also, somehow, guilty for a completely unrelated crime regarding a guy who killed his father that they're having a hearing for that same day.

Throughout the story, Meursault is frequently describing how warm he is. Being outside means he you're going to hear him complain about the heat making him sweat or overstimulating him or what have you. Those same descriptions arise at the same time whenever he's in a conversation that goes on for basically any length of time longer than some basic exchanges. During the trial, he's so overwhelmed that he directly says he has no idea where or who he is. This ever-present heat, coming from either the sun itself or the judgment from people around him, is naturally gone when he's winding down for the evening. Meursault describes it as "not wanting to be surprised" but he doesn't tend to sleep fully through the night, instead paying close attention to what he hears at around midnight. "Never before had my ears perceived so many noises, such tiny sounds. Still, I must say I was lucky in one respect; never during any of those periods did I hear footsteps." Given the context it would be understandable to take this as "not getting jumped in the middle of the night," but it's clear to me there is an underlying "and no one around to perceive me." Relatable, surely, but this is from an underlying, boiling distaste of judgment for any sort, whether it be good or positive, that I'll go into in a bit.

Meursault describes himself as a normal man a few times, but whether he would admit to it or not he's very clearly, well, strange. The woman he's crushing on, Marie, finds this both endearing and frustrating. Marie suggests marriage a few times to Meursault and he effectively answers "sure we can do that" and when asked if he loves her responds with essentially "well I'm not so sure how that's important necessarily?" There are a scant few times when Meursault goes to say something insane and stops himself from doing so, like when when Marie asks when his mother died, he says yesterday, she's taken aback, and in a moment of clarity realizes that saying "I'm not sad because I didn't do it" is insane. This is only because he previously made that mistake with someone else earlier.

And after sitting with it, I realized I kinda fell for the same trap everyone else did in that court room. Meursault killed a man, definitely, with five total gunshots, four of which were completely unnecessary, but the crime the book would lead you to believe he actually committed was essentially failing vibe checks. I, too, judged Meursault. I found his strangeness endearing and relatable at times, but the same base feeling of "this guy's weird" was there. He explodes because of this at the very end of the novel, towards a chaplain saying he'll pray for him. What good does intangible prayer and worry do for Meursault? What does it matter to be seen as some sad, lost sinner or a soul-lacking freak of a human if he's probably getting decapitated by a guillotine the very next day? The heat of the sun, while aggravating, is a natural thing, and while it pushed him to murder, only the steady beam of heat from the magnifying class he was put under in that courtroom was enough to make him mad in the end. What a guy.