Misunderstood Morality: Is Meursault a "Bad person?"
A huge reason people might see Meursault as heartless is how he reacted to his mother's death and what they noticed at the funeral. "The director then looked down at the tips of his shoes and said that I hadn't wanted to see Maman, that I hadn't cried once, and that I had left right after the funeral without paying my last respects at her grave" (Camus 89). The court focused on the depths of Meursault's actions during the funeral implying that these behaviors show a lack of respect and love for his mother. This portrayal is used against him in court to question his character, and were disgusted by him. Although Meursault's actions and reactions for his mothers death was not due to lack of love for his mother but rather his disinterest in pretending to feel emotions he does not genuinely experience.
It's not that Meursault does things because he doesn't care but it's because he does feel anything. A key example is when Marie came to him and asked if he wanted to marry him, he says "I said it didn't make any difference to me and that 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" (Camus 41). In this quote, you can see that Meursault's indifferent response reveals his lack of deep emotional attachment to Marie, reflecting his detached approach to relationships. Meursault wants to do what Marie wants but he knows he feel anything because he is not able to.
While Meursault's actions and worldview may seem distant or unfeeling, these qualities are not evidence of him being a bad person. He doesn't have the intent to be horrible person but a person that does not have any feelings. Instead, they underscore his authenticity and existential perspective. I feel that Camus uses Meursault to challenge conventional morality, suggesting that society's judgments may be superficial.
Works cited
Camus, Albert. The Stranger. Translated by Matthew Ward, Vintage International, 1989.
I think this is a good summarization of Meursault's character, however, to play devil's advocate, does having someone who feels no emotion nor feeling really good in our society? In the Stranger the example used was murder but what if it was another more darker crime that Meursault committed without reason? Is it good to have this type of person who can and may commit any crime without remorse? Is that best for society? These are hinting at the points the attorney was making but these are things to consider to Meursault's character as well. Overall, you bring up a good perspective in your post, great job.
ReplyDeleteI really like your interpretation and opinion of Meursault. As Deven mentioned, does having an unfeeling individual within a society good when our civilization is based on cooperation and empathy of the human self? While in this case, things didn't turn out as well for Meursault, I would suspect that not all cases of indifference would lead to murder if rationality was in play.
ReplyDeleteI agree that with Marie, it's more of a comical disconnect when he keeps saying that "it doesn't matter" if he loves her or not, "but that he doesn't think so." And she seems surprisingly not too bothered by his apparent "weirdness" here, shrugging it off as part of the eccentricity that she loves about him (!). But with Raymond we do see a stickier situation, where Meursault's refusal to take any kind of moral position DOES seem to equate to taking an immoral position by default: when asked to collaborate with Raymond in his horrific plot, he DOES take a position, even if he tries not to ("I didn't see any reason to refuse" etc.). A seemingly amoral character like Meursault seems to be quite vulnerable to this kind of manipulation, as he passively agrees to one request after another and finds himself enmeshed in this horrific plot. When the Arab guys see him walking along with Raymond and Masson, there's no sense in which they would assume he's not "really" with them--they look like a posse of three gangsters walking up the beach. He IS aligned with them, whether he really wants to be or not. He couldn't be more (distressingly) indifferent to the health and safety of their sister, and he lies to the police with no compunction to cover for his "pal." And THEY have no way of knowing (or caring) that he's not "really" aligned with them internally, because he really doesn't care one way or the other. His behavior makes it seem like he's aligned with them.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I think it's vital to note Mersault's emotionless and truthful behavior, since that's a huge part of his character, something you did a good job of here. At the same time, it's also important to relate it to Mersault's reluctance to lie. He always stays true to his personal values, and never lies to benefit himself or please others. Mersault may come off as a callous or bad person when doing this, but we know from looking into his mind that being cold is not his intention. It's interesting, really, how the act of being perfectly honest can be seen as negative in so many circumstances. When we're young children, we're taught that lying is immoral. But as you grow up, society expects you to lie more than you'd think. Cheers!
ReplyDeleteI think contemplating Meursault's morality is a super interesting topic, and also a super demanding one (so demanding that I decided not to write about it for my blog because I didn't want to have to organize all of my contradictory opinions on him), so I think it's really great that you decided to write about this topic! While I'm still not 100% sure how I feel about Meursault and his morality, I definitely agree with you that he isn't an inherently terrible or evil character, but there's something else more nuanced under the surface that contributes to his immoral actions. Great post!
ReplyDeleteLike Ruby, I also thought about writing on this topic but decided that it was too difficult to organize my thoughts. I entirely agree that his morality is far more nuanced than "good" or "bad", but I find him much more remorseless and cruel than it seems that some others do. His actions, in attempting to please or ignore both sides, tend to result in more harm than good. This requires the concept of the ends being needed to justify the means though, and the intent tends to be more useful usually. In that case, I think that he is too inhuman to be measured by "good" and "bad" because he has usually no intent to begin with. He is sort of alien and unfeeling.. Great post! You went about a hard question really well!
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