THE STRANGER
CHAPTER ONE
“Maman died today. Or yesterday, maybe. I don’t know.” These
are the opening lines of THE STRANGER, which suggests that the unknown narrator
is more than a little disconnected from his mother. He is not aware that his mother has taken a boyfriend or
even how old she was. The narrator goes on to say that he can take the bus for
the vigil and be back tomorrow afternoon – which seems to imply that he sees
his mother’s death as an inconvenience, something to be taken care of quickly
and easily and then disposed of.
There are quite a few references to heat and to light (“It was very
hot….” “….the glare of the sky….” and there are few descriptions at this point
of the people, which contributes to a sense of isolation. The man’s inner
landscape seems a little desolate.
The man takes a bus to the old age home his mother was
staying at. He meets the
director who speaks for him, giving the son ready-made excuses (“You weren’t
able to provide for her properly…”) for putting his mother in an old age home
so that the son doesn’t have to defend his actions.
The son, whose name we learn is Meursault, describes the
vigil through sensory detail which makes the funeral seem physically torturous
(“the light started to hurt my eyes…my back ached….my eyes hurt….”) The
caretaker offers to take the casket lid off so that Meursault can see his mother,
but Meursault declines. He smokes
a cigarette and drinks coffee to while away the hours. The elderly residents enter for the
vigil and Meursault describes them (“The women have....bulging….huge stomachs...I
couldn’t see their eyes, just a faint glimmer in a nest of wrinkles….”) There is an elderly woman who is
sobbing without relief. Meursault is told that she was a close friend of his
mother, and that now his mother is dead, she has no one; still, he finds her
constant crying annoying “…I wished I didn’t have to listen to her anymore….Then
finally she shuts up….”
He dozes off and awakes at one point, noticing that all the
old people are asleep “….except for one old man who was staring at me as if
waiting for me to wake up.” There are many references to eyes and of
watching…of being watched. The vigil is a night spent in watching and being
watched.
At last dawn breaks, and despite that during the night not
one word was exchanged between Meursault and his mother’s friends, the elderly
residents rise and all shake his hand before filing out of the room. In this
awkward, uncomfortable occasion decorum is still observed by the elderly.
His mother’s death seems to intrude on Meursault’s enjoyment
of the day. The day breaks beautifully and Meursault thinks it would be a
beautiful day to take a walk - if
it were not for Maman. When asked
again if he would like to see his mother before burial he replies no. He sees Perez, the man jokingly described by the funeral
director as Maman’s fiancée, and to Meursault’s eyes Perez is an awkward,
embarrassed looking man in a
ridiculous get up. The
funeral procession is described by Meursault as hot, uncomfortable “…the
sun….the night without sleep….made it difficult for me to see or think
straight....” The funeral is a blur to him and is again described in a
succession of images of heat and discomfort “…Perez fainting (he crumpled like
a rag doll), the blood red earth spilling over Maman’s grave…more
people…voices…the incessant drone of the motor” and the joy that he feels when
he climbs the bus back to Algiers and knows that he will be able to sleep
undisturbed for twelve hours. The
overall feeling is of a man
disconnected from other people and their emotions and perhaps even his own
emotions. He is, however, a man keenly attuned to the sensual and to his own
physical feelings; hence, Meursault’s preoccupation with the sights and sounds
of his mother’s funeral, and his own physical discomfort.
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