Ultimate Meaning and ‘The Stranger’

Imagine living in a world where there is no true meaning, depth, or significance in anything. It’s a world without any purpose, where nothing that you do – and nothing done to you – has any value. If you can imagine such a world, then you have entered The Stranger.

I recently read this book by Albert Camus. It’s a piece of philosophy masquerading as fiction, written in the first person. Camus (1913-1960) was a French absurdist, though he is generally categorized as an existentialist (he denied that he was such, but he is close enough for the purposes of this discussion).

Now, let me summarize the idea of (atheistic) existentialism. Jean-Paul Sartre asserted that “l’existence précède l’essence” or “existence precedes essence.” In other words, man exists before he has any purpose; mankind must discover (or create) his own purpose, because he exists without any inborn or theoretical purpose at all. The existentialist says that there is no real reason why mankind exists (or the universe, for that matter). Instead, we just accept that it does exist, and then we have to ‘create our own purpose.’

If this sounds depressing, it is, because it means that absolutely nothing has any innate value or significance. It just is. But this is not just the vain imaginings of a philosopher’s brain. Camus’ novel, The Stranger brings it to life by putting us inside the mind a young man who lives out this philosophy. In all likelihood, the main character, Meursault, probably doesn’t realize that he is an existentialist. He is hardly concerned about philosophy or his own presuppositions about life, because they are as equally unimportant as anything else.

The most striking, depressing, and monotonous aspect of the book is how insignificant everything is. Imagine the last time that you had a very lazy afternoon in sweltering heat: that’s the best way to describe the feeling of this book. It leaves you sapped and drained, feeling purposeless, as if you were a fly, watching events play out around you, without any actual interest in the events, because, as a fly, they don’t concern you at all.

That is what life is like for Meursault. The book begins when he goes to his mother’s funeral. Too bad – but everyone dies sooner or later. The lightbulb during the wake is extremely bright, and he spends as much time thinking about that as about the recent death. But at least the coffee and cigarette were good. The next day he goes to the funeral, but it’s a long walk in the heat. He has the next day off work, so what better to do than enjoy a lazy day at the beach? He begins an immoral liaison with his coworker that day, just because, well, why not (plus she likes him). But a few days later, his new girlfriend comes to him with a question:

“That evening Marie came by to see me and asked me if I wanted to marry her, I said it didn’t make any difference to me and we could if she wanted to. Then she wanted to know if I loved her. I answered the same way I had the last time, that it didn’t mean anything but that I probably didn’t love her. ‘So why marry me, then?’ she said. I explained to her that it didn’t really matter and that if she wanted to, we could get married.”

Of course, the story continues on from here, as the main character gets caught up in the wrong-doings of one of his neighbors, who recruits him for some vice. In the end, he ‘accidentally’ murders a man on the beach. It’s ‘accidental’ because he didn’t intend to, he was just irritated by ‘the sun.’ On the other hand, it wasn’t really an accident, because after the first shot and a brief pause, he pulled the trigger four more times. This lands him in jail, and ultimately, headed toward a guillotine. Throughout it all, Meursault feels like a passive spectator – one who never actually acts on his own, but who is driven along on a current of events that happen to him. Even in jail, he doesn’t try to understand the purpose of the trial, nor is he particularly bothered by the prospect of justice. Sure, it sounds unpleasant, but (as he reasons to himself), he’s going to die sooner or later, so what is the point of delaying it for another twenty years? It will be just as bad in twenty years as in six months.

I hope I’ve conveyed the tone of the novel. Meursault’s life is lived in a world void of significance. Love and relationship has no ultimate meaning. Even death – the murder of another man, the death of a relative, or the prospect of one’s own demise – has no true significance. Loving another person is merely biological, nothing more. The death of a human is like the death of an earthworm. Institutions like family and government and court are simply man-made ideas without any reality behind them. This is the world of Meursault, and the existentialist.

Meursault finally changes at the end of the book, when a priest tries to save his soul. After refusing to even consider spiritual things, Meursault flies into a rage, screaming at the priest and ranting about the meaninglessness of life. And then, he finally finds ‘meaning’ in life:

“And I felt ready to live it all again too. As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself – so like a brother, really – I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again. For everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate.”

And this is the conclusion of Meursault’s ‘spiritual journey’ (if I can call it such); he has found a sort of meaning in life – or rather, he has invented a meaning for life. He feels that there is something to live for. He is finally demonstrating initiative (screaming at the priest) and looking forward to something (his death surrounded by cries of hate). It hardly seems pleasant, but it is a transformation of sorts from his previous character.

In short, I’m astonished at Camus’ honest treatment of where his philosophy leads. I can at least give him credit for intellectual honesty. The world of The Stranger is a horrific place, a place devoid of meaning, a place where there is no reason to live, a place where the best that you can do is ‘create your own meaning’ in a world without any. Camus even shows that this type of thinking makes human life worthless and makes for some very sad individuals (like Marie, who isn’t loved); on the other hand, if human life really is pointless (and if there is no such thing as love), then maybe we should all just accept that the world really is like this and get on with ‘creating our own purpose in life.’

Not many people today are probably heart-felt existentialists, but this book still shows what goes on in the minds of many people. If you don’t believe that there is a God, then life really is insignificant. Many people struggle with that, feeling that they don’t have purpose in life. Life feels empty and dull for them.

As a Christian, I know that God created the world and that it is filled with deep, rich, intense significance. Human institutions like marriage and family, government, and religion are all deeply significant, because they are divinely established. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the depth of meaning in every aspect of life, but I certainly don’t feel like Meursault. And that is why it was good to be reminded that there are people out there like him: people for whom life is just something that happens to them, something that doesn’t really matter. For such people, it’s no wonder that they feel purposeless, or that they are on a search for significance. Because without God, that is where I would be, too.