The existentialism of Albert Camus is based on his view of life as the Absurd. This sense of the Absurd derives from the realization that man is destined to die, as if being punished for a crime he never committed. There is no reprieve, and this makes life absurd. There is no God in Camus's conception, and those who hope for an afterlife are thus to be disappointed. the fact that there is no God also means that there is no meaning or purpose to life outside of life itself, and that is destined to end. The one saving grace in the world seems to be the fact that while there is no God on which man can depend, man can live as if he can depend on his fellow man, even though he and they will all die. This is another absurdity, but it is based on the fact that the individual has come to understand the absurdity of life and that this realization liberates him. The individual faces death, knowing that he will lose, but acting as if his life ultimately does matter.
There is a concern with death and its inevitability in the works of Camus, and The Stranger is one such novel that involves a character faced with an ethical dilemma in the face of his realization that life is absurd and that it has no purpose. The issue of moral responsibility is a difficult one in the universe of the Absurd, since there is no God, no caring or concerned universe, and ultimately no meaning beyond death. For Camus, though, there is a responsibility placed on every individual for making this world more livable, and this is the moral responsibility that man should respond to in life. Camus's characters do not always follow this precept, however, for the absurdity of life overwhelms their moral sense.
Meursault is the protagonist of The Stranger, He is an intelligent and thoughtful man who has examined life and who sees through the artifice by which others live to the underlying truth. Society sees him as rebellious, particularly after he kills the A...