The Outsider, written by Albert Camus, revolves around a protagonist - Mersault. The major theme the book explores is existentialism. According to Wikipedia, ‘Existentialism is a philosophical movement that views human existence as having a set of underlying themes and characteristics, such as anxiety, dread, freedom, and awareness of death. It is also an outlook, or a perspective, on life that pursues the question of the meaning of life or the meaning of existence.’ I am going to explore the change in Mersault’s perspective on life during his stay in prison. There are a lot of references to death in the book, as well - Mersault’s mother dies in the beginning, later on, Mersault commits murder killing an Arab man, and near the end he is sentenced to death. Mersault is Camus’ symbol for portraying and exploring the Absurdity in life, and communicating to the readers that death is an inevitable part of the life that we are all living. I am going to explore the way Camus utilizes imagery and sensory imagery, strong characterization, symbolism, and diction to show us the life of a character whose views and thoughts of existence are based on the absurd, and how, for the readers, this enables the exploration of existentialism.
Camus uses the Sun as a symbol for society in the novel. As Mersault is walking to his mum’s funeral, the nurse tells him, ‘‘if you go slowly, you risk getting sunstroke. But if you go too fast, you perspire and then in the church you catch a chill.’ Mersault replies, ‘she was right, there is no way out.’ Here the nurse literally talks about the sun, but Camus actually meant it metaphorically – he refers to the hidden meaning of the Sun here – which is society. To Meursault, the sun is society, and if you stick with society by walking too slow, you are going to get overwhelmed by it. This contrasts with walking fast, which actually gets you out of the sun sooner, but you will be tired, and, will feel cold from the sudden lack of sun. When you...