The Outsider
Chpt. 1
What are your first impressions of the character of Mersault and his reaction to his mother’s death?
What unusual features can you note about Camus’ style of writing? Consider the sequence of ideas and sentence structure of the opening passage.
Can you find some possible symbols in the opening section and what might they suggest?
How is Mersault affected physically / emotionally in this passage?
Discuss Mersault’s general vision and viewpoint in this scene.
Using the information that Mersault provides, analyse a character in Chapter 1. What level of insight does Mersault provide into this character’s personality?
Describe the relationship between Mersault and his deceased mother.
Discuss the style of writing in this chapter.
Discuss the cultural context of this book from what we can see in Chapter 1.
What possible themes are introduced from the start of this book?
Discuss Camus’ use of light and dark in this chapter.
Chpt. 2
Meursault appears heartless for failing to express grief or even to care about his mother’s death. Yet to condemn and dismiss him risks missing much of the meaning of the novel. The Outsider, though it explores Camus’s philosophy of the absurd, is not meant to be read as a tale containing a lesson for our moral improvement. Camus’s philosophy of the absurd characterizes the world and human existence as having no rational purpose or meaning. According to Camus’s philosophy, the universe is indifferent to human struggles, and Meursault’s indifferent personality embodies this philosophy. He does not attempt to assign a rational order to the events around him, and he is largely indifferent to human activity. Because Meursault does not see his mother’s death as part of a larger structure of human existence, he can easily make a date, go to a comedy, and have sex the day after his mother’s funeral. Meursault is Camus’s example of someone who does not need a rational world view to function.
Meursault’s interactions with Marie on the beach show the importance he places on the physical aspects of existence. He reports to us almost nothing about Marie’s personality, but he carefully describes their physical interactions. The prose in his description of lying on the float with Marie and looking up at the sky is unusually warm and heartfelt. In this passage, it even seems that Meursault is happy. When he describes watching people from his balcony the following day, he again seems content.
While watching from his balcony, Meursault does not express any sort of judgment about the people he sees – he simply notices their primary characteristics. While the people he watches obviously attach great importance to their own activities, Meursault sees them as just part of another Sunday, like any other. Throughout the novel, Meursault plays this role of the detached observer. Just as he does not pass judgment on those he sees from far above on his balcony, so too does he refrain from judging the more significant characters with whom he interacts throughout the novel.
Chpt. 4
Meursault lives his life almost unconsciously, nearly sleepwalking through a ready-made structure that his society provides him. Find a suitable quotation in Ch. 4 to back this up.
By attempting to assign meaning to the meaningless events of Meursault’s life, the people in Meursault’s social circle succumb to the same temptation that confronts us as we read The Outsider.
Comment on this with regard to what Salamano says to Meursault about his mother. What does this tell us aboutSalamano? How is his own situation similar?
How does Raymond’s encounter with the policeman imply a lack of rational order in human life? Consider the action of slapping in
your response, and what it says of society’s accepted moral order?
Salamano’s description of life with his dog highlights the inevitability of physical decay. How does this represent a reminder of Camus’s philosophy of the absurd?
Explain what you understand by the following quotation:
I said that people never change their lives, that in any case one life was as good as another and that I
wasn’t dissatisfied with mine here at all. (Mersault, Ch.4)
Chpt. 6
1. Mersault and his world become synonymous through their mutual indifference
At the beginning of the novel, the indifference Meursault feels is located exclusively within himself, in his own heart and mind. By this point, however, Meursault has come to realize how similar the universe (or at least Camus’s conception of it) is to his own personality. He begins to understand that not only does he not care what happens, but that the world does not care either. Reflecting on the moment when Raymond gave him the gun, Meursault says, It was then that I realized you could either shoot or not shoot. His comment implies that no difference exists between the two alternatives.
2. Meursault’s murder of the Arab comes as a complete surprise
Inevitably, the first question that the killing provokes is, “Why?” But nothing in Meursault’s narrative answers this question. Camus’s philosophy of absurdism emphasizes the futility of man’s inevitable attempts to find order and meaning in life. The “absurd”refers to the feeling man experiences when he tries to find or fabricate order in an irrational universe. Cleverly, Camus coaxes us into just such an attempt (he lures us into trying to determine the reason for Meursault’s killing of the Arab, when in fact Meursault has no reason). Camus forces us to confront the fact that any rational explanation we try to offer would be based on a consciousness that we create for
Meursault, an order that we impose onto his mind.
3. Nature’s effect on Mersault
In this chapter, we once again see the profound effect nature has on Meursault. Early in the chapter, Meursault notes nature’s benefits. The sun soothes his headache, and the cool water provides an opportunity for him and Marie to swim and play happily together. Later in the chapter, however, nature becomes a negative force on Meursault. As at his mother’s funeral, the heat oppresses him. Camus’s language intensifies to describe the sun’s harshness, particularly in the passages just before Meursault commits the murder. His prose becomes increasingly ornate, featuring such rhetorical devices as personification and metaphor, and contrasting strongly with the spare, simple descriptions that Meursault usually offers.
Chpt. 1
What are your first impressions of the character of Mersault and his reaction to his mother’s death?
What unusual features can you note about Camus’ style of writing? Consider the sequence of ideas and sentence structure of the opening passage.
Can you find some possible symbols in the opening section and what might they suggest?
How is Mersault affected physically / emotionally in this passage?
Discuss Mersault’s general vision and viewpoint in this scene.
Using the information that Mersault provides, analyse a character in Chapter 1. What level of insight does Mersault provide into this character’s personality?
Describe the relationship between Mersault and his deceased mother.
Discuss the style of writing in this chapter.
Discuss the cultural context of this book from what we can see in Chapter 1.
What possible themes are introduced from the start of this book?
Discuss Camus’ use of light and dark in this chapter.
Chpt. 2
Meursault appears heartless for failing to express grief or even to care about his mother’s death. Yet to condemn and dismiss him risks missing much of the meaning of the novel. The Outsider, though it explores Camus’s philosophy of the absurd, is not meant to be read as a tale containing a lesson for our moral improvement. Camus’s philosophy of the absurd characterizes the world and human existence as having no rational purpose or meaning. According to Camus’s philosophy, the universe is indifferent to human struggles, and Meursault’s indifferent personality embodies this philosophy. He does not attempt to assign a rational order to the events around him, and he is largely indifferent to human activity. Because Meursault does not see his mother’s death as part of a larger structure of human existence, he can easily make a date, go to a comedy, and have sex the day after his mother’s funeral. Meursault is Camus’s example of someone who does not need a rational world view to function.
Meursault’s interactions with Marie on the beach show the importance he places on the physical aspects of existence. He reports to us almost nothing about Marie’s personality, but he carefully describes their physical interactions. The prose in his description of lying on the float with Marie and looking up at the sky is unusually warm and heartfelt. In this passage, it even seems that Meursault is happy. When he describes watching people from his balcony the following day, he again seems content.
While watching from his balcony, Meursault does not express any sort of judgment about the people he sees – he simply notices their primary characteristics. While the people he watches obviously attach great importance to their own activities, Meursault sees them as just part of another Sunday, like any other. Throughout the novel, Meursault plays this role of the detached observer. Just as he does not pass judgment on those he sees from far above on his balcony, so too does he refrain from judging the more significant characters with whom he interacts throughout the novel.
Chpt. 4
Meursault lives his life almost unconsciously, nearly sleepwalking through a ready-made structure that his society provides him. Find a suitable quotation in Ch. 4 to back this up.
By attempting to assign meaning to the meaningless events of Meursault’s life, the people in Meursault’s social circle succumb to the same temptation that confronts us as we read The Outsider.
Comment on this with regard to what Salamano says to Meursault about his mother. What does this tell us aboutSalamano? How is his own situation similar?
How does Raymond’s encounter with the policeman imply a lack of rational order in human life? Consider the action of slapping in
your response, and what it says of society’s accepted moral order?
Salamano’s description of life with his dog highlights the inevitability of physical decay. How does this represent a reminder of Camus’s philosophy of the absurd?
Explain what you understand by the following quotation:
I said that people never change their lives, that in any case one life was as good as another and that I
wasn’t dissatisfied with mine here at all. (Mersault, Ch.4)
Chpt. 6
1. Mersault and his world become synonymous through their mutual indifference
At the beginning of the novel, the indifference Meursault feels is located exclusively within himself, in his own heart and mind. By this point, however, Meursault has come to realize how similar the universe (or at least Camus’s conception of it) is to his own personality. He begins to understand that not only does he not care what happens, but that the world does not care either. Reflecting on the moment when Raymond gave him the gun, Meursault says, It was then that I realized you could either shoot or not shoot. His comment implies that no difference exists between the two alternatives.
2. Meursault’s murder of the Arab comes as a complete surprise
Inevitably, the first question that the killing provokes is, “Why?” But nothing in Meursault’s narrative answers this question. Camus’s philosophy of absurdism emphasizes the futility of man’s inevitable attempts to find order and meaning in life. The “absurd”refers to the feeling man experiences when he tries to find or fabricate order in an irrational universe. Cleverly, Camus coaxes us into just such an attempt (he lures us into trying to determine the reason for Meursault’s killing of the Arab, when in fact Meursault has no reason). Camus forces us to confront the fact that any rational explanation we try to offer would be based on a consciousness that we create for
Meursault, an order that we impose onto his mind.
3. Nature’s effect on Mersault
In this chapter, we once again see the profound effect nature has on Meursault. Early in the chapter, Meursault notes nature’s benefits. The sun soothes his headache, and the cool water provides an opportunity for him and Marie to swim and play happily together. Later in the chapter, however, nature becomes a negative force on Meursault. As at his mother’s funeral, the heat oppresses him. Camus’s language intensifies to describe the sun’s harshness, particularly in the passages just before Meursault commits the murder. His prose becomes increasingly ornate, featuring such rhetorical devices as personification and metaphor, and contrasting strongly with the spare, simple descriptions that Meursault usually offers.