During the second book of The Stranger, Meursault is held captive and is tried for the murder of the Arab, but more for his crimes against society in terms of his personality. During this time, he is interviewed by and speaks to members of the Church, which make for some of the most interesting scenes in the book. People such as the magistrate and the chaplain seem even more unnerved than everyone else by Meursault, mostly because of his relationship with Christianity and his lack of belief in God.
The first conversation between Meursault and the magistrate, where the latter famously asks "Do you wish my life to have no meaning?" is the one that's the most detailed in the book. During their time together, the magistrate is extremely disturbed by the fact that Meursault waited between his first shot and the next four, After Meursault admits this, he goes into a long rant about how he has to repent, before discovering that Meursault doesn't believe in God and beginning to call him Monsieur Antichrist. Meursault speaks to the chaplain in the last chapter in the novel, where they talk about the nature of death and the afterlife, before Meursault explodes into a rant about how life has no meaning and how it always leads to the same place, driving the chaplain away.
I think that the two men that represent Christianity are portrayed in a fairly positive light in this book, although Meursault sees them as ignorant, Both of them refer to Meursault as a friend, are generally kind to him, and seem to really want to help him repent his sins, saying that they'll pray for him. They refuse to believe that Meursault truly has no sort of belief in God, which he doesn't like, but that seems pretty reasonable given some context. Both of the two claim that every single prisoner that they've had before has eventually began praying to God, have "turned to Him in their time of trouble." This is probably a large amount of people, and it's likely that not all of them were religious before they were convicted. The prospect of imminent death probably made some of them desperate, and they turned to religion as a last hope.
It's the complete absence of hope that disturbs the religious men so much about Meursault. He refuses to try to alter his account of the murder to save himself by saying there wasn't a pause, even though there are hints that the magistrate wants him to. he says that he feels no despair or regret about his situation, and perhaps most importantly, he has absolutely no belief in an afterlife, doesn't even dare to hope it exists, saying that he wishes it did, but that it doesn't matter. This is completely alien to the Christians, this complete lack of belief. Even someone from a different religion would have some sort of values or hope in this situation, and that would be something they could relate to. But Meursault's beliefs that life isn't important at all are things that they can't relate to, and what makes Meursault and what he represents to frightening to them.
I wouldn't say that Mersault holds the belief that life is entirely meaningless, as you say. The most important tenet of Mersault's personal philosophy, in line with Camus beliefs about absurdism, is that the only meaning that life holds is that which you create yourself through your own actions and experiences as a human, because there is no intrinsic meaning to the "benign indifference" of the universe. The reason Mersault debates the chaplain so vehemently is that he refuses to blindly accept any narrative that ascribes greater meaning to the universe, because even if some meaning existed, there's no possible way that the chaplain could know it as well as he seems to think he does.
ReplyDeleteYou're right, and I meant to say more that Meursault feels that life has no higher meaning rather than saying that he feels that his life has no meaning. There are clearly things in his life that he enjoys, and he wants to keep living, but as in many places in the novel, he disregards his emotions, thinking more logically instead and deciding that life objectively has no meaning on its own, and that he's not going to keep on living, so there's no reason to have hope.
DeleteIn Camus's philosophical writing, the absence of hope is a necessary condition for a true and honest philosophical consciousness--a true *facing* of the absurd prospect of the human condition. So for the novel's purposes, it's necessary that Meursault clearly abandon all hope--the hope of metaphysical salvation is just the first of these. He also must abandon hope of escape--which in this case is the certainty of death, from which (in the larger sense) there is no escape. Likewise, we must abandon hope in order to honestly confront our predicament as mortal beings.
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