Confusion, Guilt, and Camus

One of the more debated topics of The Stranger we’ve discussed is why Meursault is, well, the way he is. The Stranger makes us feel strange, and Meursault’s strong disconnection from us is the core of that odd feeling.

People have attempted to give a psychological explanation to Meursault many times, and I read one of these explanations for my panel presentation. It was compelling, but almost too perfect. My group members and I found it a fascinating and mind-blowing article. It explained everything we found weird about Meursault. I myself found some relief in it because I could now understand Meursault. 

But I feel guilty about that. Meursault isn’t really supposed to be understood -- in fact, nothing in The Stranger is necessarily supposed to be understood. It really is supposed to be left absurd and un-understandable. 

We as humans have a drive to understand, to label, to categorize. When we come across something new that we don’t understand, we have to find some way to organize it. Camus has purposefully made Meursault so absurd and alien to us that we cannot understand him, thus activating our drive to sort him into something we can understand. But we’re not supposed to. Camus doesn’t want us to. 

But can we live with that? When I read the article for our panel presentation, I finally felt comfortable with The Stranger. I always felt like something was off with Meursault, but I couldn’t place what because Camus made it so absurd. I could understand that Meursault didn't really experience emotions, and had reactions that were different from everyone else. But there was something else that was wrong, something beyond that. It made me uncomfortable -- I couldn't place what it was, I couldn't understand it. But when I found this article, everything made some amount of sense. I could place Meursault in a category in my head and comfortably file him away, even though that is exactly what I’m not supposed to do. 

I have my own doubts about the validity of our article. It does seem too good to be true, but in more ways than one. Yes, it's a surprisingly perfect diagnosis of a mental disorder for a literary character who was created by an author who had no idea about the condition in question because it had not been "discovered" when he was alive (not to mention the fact that it's nearly impossible to diagnose fictional characters with mental disorders). But it's also too easily placing a label on Meursault and explaining him. Defining what’s “wrong” with Meursault is meant to be an impossible task. We’re not supposed to do it. We’ll certainly try, because we can’t live without knowing. But at least for me, there will always be that reminder in the back of my mind -- we're not supposed to try to define Meursault. Just let him be.

If you're able to come to terms with that, then moving on with your life is an easy task. But I think the majority of people will have the constant battle in their heads that I have in mine: I want to understand Meursault because he is a person. I should be able to make some sense of him because he is like me, he is human. But Camus wants me to not even try to understand Meursault, and as a strong advocate for what an author wants you to know/understand about their work, I don't want to ignore that. To ignore it is to change The Stranger drastically. If you try to understand Meursault, you will not understand The Stranger. And that's the final choice: do you listen to Camus or do you satisfy your need for understanding?