The stranger summary

THE STRANGER SUMMARIES
• Protagonist
Mersault is the protagonist and narrator of the novel. He is a young shipping clerk living in
Algiers. Because he befriends his neighbor, Raymond Sintes, he is drawn into a conflict with a
group of Arabs.
• Antagonist
Mersault’s greatest antagonist is himself. He lives life with detachment and lack of emotion.
When he shoots an Arab, partially in self-defense, he condemns himself by refusing to show
emotion or remorse.
On another level, Raymond and the Arabs are also antagonists, for they draw Mersault into
the conflict that leads to his downfall and execution.
• Climax
The climax of the book is reached when the jury delivers its verdict: Mersault is to be
decapitated by guillotine in a public place. Although the reader realizes in the sixth chapter of
Part I that Mersault is certain to be found guilty, since he killed an Arab and then fired four
bullets into the dead body, the suspense builds until his sentence is pronounced in the fourth
chapter of Part II.
• Outcome
The Stranger ends in tragedy when Mersault is sentenced to die by the guillotine. His lack of
emotion and his detachment about life convince the jury that his life should not be spared.
1.

2. ''the stranger'' by albert camus summary
When Meursault is notified of his mother’s death, he leaves immediately for
Marengo, where she (mother)was living in the Home for Aged Persons(old
house). He is taken to the room where her coffin is placed and casually
declines the doorkeeper’s offer to unscrew the lid so he can look at her.
Meursault spends the night there, drinking coffee, smoking, and chatting
with the doorkeeper. The next day, a Friday, he attends the funeral and
leaves immediately afterward to return to Algiers.
Saturday morning, Meursault goes for a swim and runs into Marie Cardona,
a girl who formerly worked in his office. He invites her to a movie and later
takes her to bed.
Meursault spends Sunday lounging on the balcony of his flat, smoking and
watching people on the street below. The next day, returning home from
work, Meursault comes upon Raymond Sintes, a young man who lives on
the same floor. Raymond, who calls himself a warehouseman but is
reputed to be a pimp, was just in a fight with the brother of a Moorish girl
he is seeing. Believing that the girl is cheating on him, he beat her up, and
her brother accosted him, seeking revenge. Raymond asks Meursault to
draft a letter to entice the girl back so he can humiliate her, and Meursault
agrees to help.
One afternoon, Meursault is in his room with Marie when they hear
Raymond beating the girl again. A police officer is summoned (order
someoneto be present).. Later, Raymond asks Meursault to testify to his
own knowledge that the girl was false to Raymond. Again, Meursault
agrees to help, and he and Raymond go out to a café. Upon returning, they
encounter another neighbor, an old man named Salamano, whose dog ran
off. Although he abused the animal mercilessly, he is weeping and fearful
of what will become of him without his longtime companion(dog).
That Sunday, Meursault and Marie accompany Raymond to the beach,
where they encounter two Arabs who were following Raymond for some

time. A fight breaks out, and Raymond is cut before the Arabs slip away.
Later, with his wounds patched, Raymond goes walking and comes upon
the Arabs again. This time, Raymond pulls a gun, but Meursault, who
followed, offers to hold it to ensure a fair fight. Almost immediately,
however, the Arabs vanish(run away or dissappear).
Raymond goes back to the bungalow, but Meursault—Raymond’s pistol
still in his pocket—stays out in the blazing afternoon sunlight and soon
comes upon the Arab who stabbed Raymond. Meursault steps forward and,
seeing the flash of a knife blade in a blur of light and heat, pulls the trigger.
He pumps four more bullets into the Arab’s inert body.
Meursault is arrested and questioned by the examining magistrate for the
next eleven months, usually with a court-appointed lawyer present. The
questions focus on two things: his apparent callousness(feeling or
showing no sympathy for others ) at his mother’s funeral and the fact that
he hesitated after his first shot and then fired four more times. At one point,
the magistrate displays a small silver crucifix and asks Meursault whether
he believes in God. When Meursault replies matter-of-factly that he does
not, the magistrate is visibly upset.
Meursault is held in prison, where he is visited by Marie, who holds out
hope for his acquittal. He soon becomes accustomed to prison life,
although small privations occasionally upset him, most of all, the fact that
he is not allowed to smoke. He begins to sleep sixteen to eighteen hours a
day. Soon, six months pass, and he begins talking to himself without
realizing it.
In June, his trial begins...................
One of the first witnesses called, the warden of the Home for Aged Persons
in Marengo, testifies that Meursault’s mother complained about her son’s
conduct toward her and that on the day of the funeral Meursault neither
cried nor lingered by the grave. The doorkeeper is called to testify that
Meursault did not want to view his mother’s body. When Marie takes the

stand, the prosecutor maneuvers her into admitting that her affair with
Meursault began the day after his mother’s funeral and that they first went
to the movies to see a comedy. When Raymond attempts to exonerate his
friend, he is exposed as a criminal and a pimp.
After a trial that seems almost to exclude him from its proceedings,
Meursault is pronounced guilty and sentenced to death by decapitation( is
the separation of the head from the body.). Meursault refuses repeatedly to
see the chaplain, but one day the chaplain enters the cell without his
permission and tries to talk to him about God. Meursault is patient at first,
but then, becoming bored and annoyed, lashes out, cursing the chaplain
and pointing out that all his supposed certainty amounts to nothing in the
end. Hearing the commotion, the guards rush in to rescue the priest,
leaving Meursault to drop off to sleep, exhausted.
When he awakens, he finds himself awash in a strange feeling of peace and
resignation, devoid of hope and accepting of what he describes as
“the benign indifference of the universe.''
(quote explanation: it means "there's no aim and meaning for us and our
existence in the universe. It doesn't differ for the universe whatever
happens to you; you're all alone)
He is content to await his execution and, in fact, hopes that it will be
witnessed by a large crowd of spectators cursing him.
The Stranger by Albert Camus | a summary
Meursault, a young Algerian pied-noir, hears news of his mother's death.
He receives this information with mild annoyance. He must now ask his
boss for two days leave in order to attend the funeral. It is the custom, in
his culture, for the bereaved to sit all night in vigil by the coffin of the
departed loved one. At the vigil and during the funeral the following day he
shows no grief, sadness or even regret. He only feels the physical
inconvenience of sitting through the vigil and the heat of the sun during the
funeral procession to the cemetery. At the funeral he makes mental notes
of the physical objects that strike his eye; shining screws in the walnut

coffin, the colours on the dresses of the nurses and the large bellies of the
elderly mourners.
The following day, back in Algiers, Meursault goes swimming in the sea
and meets a girl, Marie, whom he knows vaguely. That evening they go to
the cinema together to see a comedy; afterwards they go back to
Meursault's appartment to have sex. A relationship, of sorts, develops
during which Meursault shows no more feeling or affection towards Marie
than he displayed at his mother's funeral. One day she asks Meursault to
marry her and he accepts (advising her that it's all the same to him whether
they marry or not).
He works in an office in Algiers, taking little interest in his career and
receiving with disinterest the news of a prospective promotion and the
transfer to Paris that accompanies the rise in position. He is more
interested in the physical sensations to be found at work such as enjoying
the cool freshness of the hand-towels at mid-day and comparing this
feeling to the warm clamminess of the same towels by the end of the day.
At home, as well as his relationship with Marie, he develops a relationship
with his unsavoury neighbour, Raymond Sintes, a gangster who beats
women. Meursault is as disinterested in the friendship with Sintes and he is
with his romance with Marie. One day, this friendship leads him to a beach
where he kills an Arab with five shots of Sintes' revolver. The two men had
come across the Arab and his friends earlier in the day and a fight had
broken out, one of the Arabs had a knife. Later on Meursault is walking
alone on the beach and comes across one of the Arabs. Through chance
Meursault has Sintes' gun. The sun on his head and the flash on that sun
on the blade of the Arab's knife somehow results in Meursault killing the
man with a single shot and then firing four more bullets into the inert body.
So ends the first part of the book.
The second half of The Stranger is concerned with Meursault's trial and
subsequent execution for the murder of the Arab. Throughout his trial and
imprisonment, until the day before his execution, Meursault maintains the

same detached indifference we saw in the first half of the book. He exhibits
the same preoccupation with his own physical sensations and the same
reluctance to pretend to have emotions he does not feel.
Much to the chagrin of the lawyers, he will not plead self-defence in the
face of his murder charge. In the Algeria of the time such a plea would
probably see him escape punishment. Neither will he express emotion or
remorse for his victim. He is warned by his lawyer that the prosecution will
make use of his unusual behaviour at his mother's funeral but in the same
way Meursault refuses to express histrionic remorse over the Arab he won't
make a show of weeping over his mother during the trial. The only
explanation for killing the Arab Meursault will, or can, offer is “because of
the sun.”
During the trial Meursault shows the same disinterested attitude he has
displayed throughout the book. His mind wanders; he drifts in and out of
what the prosecution and his defence are saying. To him, although he is
aware that he is the subject of conversation, it is like they are talking about
someone else. He is more interested in the different colours of the fans
used by the jury-members or the sunlight and noise coming through the
court-room window.
From his arrest to his execution, Meursault spends the time he is not in
court in prison. Once he has come to terms with his loss of freedom he
learns to adapt to his environment. He develops his memory and spends
his time mentally cataloguing the items of furniture in his former room. He
realises that even if a person were to live only for one day, he would amass
enough memories to last in a hundred years in prison without getting
bored. He thinks that even if he were made to live out his life in the base of
a hollow tree-trunk with only the view of the sky above him for
entertainment he could find enough to interest him in the flight-patterns of
the birds and the shapes of the clouds above him. He would wait for these
patterns in the same way that in his former lifer he waited for Saturday to
take Marie into his arms.

After these reflections Meursault is ready to confront the prison Chaplain
who attempts to take his confession and read him his rites. He throws the
cleric out of his cell, stung by his promises of ‘another life' after this one,
and convinced that this life alone is certain and that the inevitability of
death removes all significance. After the Chaplain is gone, Meursault, for
the first time, is filled with the “tender indifference of the world.” He now
realises that he has been happy in his life and would like to live it all over
again. He hopes “in order that all may be fulfilled” that there will be many
people attending his execution and that they all greet him with cries of
hatred.
• The Stranger by Albert Camus | a
summary
Meursault, a young Algerian pied-noir, hears news of his mother's death.
He receives this information with mild annoyance. He must now ask his
boss for two days leave in order to attend the funeral. It is the custom, in
his culture, for the bereaved to sit all night in vigil by the coffin of the
departed loved one. At the vigil and during the funeral the following day he
shows no grief, sadness or even regret. He only feels the physical
inconvenience of sitting through the vigil and the heat of the sun during the
funeral procession to the cemetery. At the funeral he makes mental notes
of the physical objects that strike his eye; shining screws in the walnut
coffin, the colours on the dresses of the nurses and the large bellies of the
elderly mourners.
The following day, back in Algiers, Meursault goes swimming in the sea
and meets a girl, Marie, whom he knows vaguely. That evening they go to
the cinema together to see a comedy; afterwards they go back to
Meursault's appartment to have sex. A relationship, of sorts, develops
during which Meursault shows no more feeling or affection towards Marie
than he displayed at his mother's funeral. One day she asks Meursault to
marry her and he accepts (advising her that it's all the same to him whether
they marry or not).
He works in an office in Algiers, taking little interest in his career and
receiving with disinterest the news of a prospective promotion and the

transfer to Paris that accompanies the rise in position. He is more
interested in the physical sensations to be found at work such as enjoying
the cool freshness of the hand-towels at mid-day and comparing this
feeling to the warm clamminess of the same towels by the end of the day.
At home, as well as his relationship with Marie, he develops a relationship
with his unsavoury neighbour, Raymond Sintes, a gangster who beats
women. Meursault is as disinterested in the friendship with Sintes and he is
with his romance with Marie. One day, this friendship leads him to a beach
where he kills an Arab with five shots of Sintes' revolver. The two men had
come across the Arab and his friends earlier in the day and a fight had
broken out, one of the Arabs had a knife. Later on Meursault is walking
alone on the beach and comes across one of the Arabs. Through chance
Meursault has Sintes' gun. The sun on his head and the flash on that sun
on the blade of the Arab's knife somehow results in Meursault killing the
man with a single shot and then firing four more bullets into the inert body.
So ends the first part of the book.
The second half of The Stranger is concerned with Meursault's trial and
subsequent execution for the murder of the Arab. Throughout his trial and
imprisonment, until the day before his execution, Meursault maintains the
same detached indifference we saw in the first half of the book. He exhibits
the same preoccupation with his own physical sensations and the same
reluctance to pretend to have emotions he does not feel.
Much to the chagrin of the lawyers, he will not plead self-defence in the
face of his murder charge. In the Algeria of the time such a plea would
probably see him escape punishment. Neither will he express emotion or
remorse for his victim. He is warned by his lawyer that the prosecution will
make use of his unusual behaviour at his mother's funeral but in the same
way Meursault refuses to express histrionic remorse over the Arab he won't
make a show of weeping over his mother during the trial. The only
explanation for killing the Arab Meursault will, or can, offer is “because of
the sun.”

During the trial Meursault shows the same disinterested attitude he has
displayed throughout the book. His mind wanders; he drifts in and out of
what the prosecution and his defence are saying. To him, although he is
aware that he is the subject of conversation, it is like they are talking about
someone else. He is more interested in the different colours of the fans
used by the jury-members or the sunlight and noise coming through the
court-room window.
From his arrest to his execution, Meursault spends the time he is not in
court in prison. Once he has come to terms with his loss of freedom he
learns to adapt to his environment. He develops his memory and spends
his time mentally cataloguing the items of furniture in his former room. He
realises that even if a person were to live only for one day, he would amass
enough memories to last in a hundred years in prison without getting
bored. He thinks that even if he were made to live out his life in the base of
a hollow tree-trunk with only the view of the sky above him for
entertainment he could find enough to interest him in the flight-patterns of
the birds and the shapes of the clouds above him. He would wait for these
patterns in the same way that in his former lifer he waited for Saturday to
take Marie into his arms.
After these reflections Meursault is ready to confront the prison Chaplain
who attempts to take his confession and read him his rites. He throws the
cleric out of his cell, stung by his promises of ‘another life' after this one,
and convinced that this life alone is certain and that the inevitability of
death removes all significance. After the Chaplain is gone, Meursault, for
the first time, is filled with the “tender indifference of the world.” He now
realises that he has been happy in his life and would like to live it all over
again. He hopes “in order that all may be fulfilled” that there will be many
people attending his execution and that they all greet him with cries of
hatred.
• SHORT SUMMARY (Synopsis)
The Stranger is Mersault, the narrator and protagonist of the novel. He suffers alienation from
himself and the world. His narrative is divided into two parts. Part I deals with the routine
affairs of Mersault, except for two key events. The story begins with the death of Mersault’s

mother. Since he is an average man who earns barely enough for himself, Mersault sent his
mother away to a Home for the Aged in Marengo, an action that brought him criticism. Then
when he attends the funeral of his mother, he finds that he does not feel much grief; neither
is he concerned about observing the social formalities of mourning. The day after his mother’s
funeral, Mersault becomes involved in an affair with Marie, who was once a typist in his
office. They swim together, have lunch, watch a comic film, and make love. The society is
horrified at his refusal to observe a period of mourning for his mother. He is called "uncouth,"
"insensitive," and a "social monster". Part I also reveals Mersault’s involvement with
Raymond Sintes, his neighbor who works as a pimp. Raymond has beaten has girlfriend for
cheating on him, but he wants to punish her further. He persuades Mersault to write a
scathing letter to her on Raymond’s behalf. The result of the letter is another confrontation
between the girl and Raymond in which he beats her brutally. Mersault agrees to testify in
Raymond’s behalf, saying that he was provoked by the girl into the confrontation. Mersault
also agrees to travel with Raymond to the beach house of Masson, Raymond’s friend. At the
beach, they encounter two Arabs, one of whom is the brother of the beaten girlfriend. A fight
ensues, and Raymond is stabbed in the arms and mouth. Mersault is drawn into the conflict
and winds up killing the Arab brother. It is the second key event of Part I. Both the death of his
mother and the murder of the Arab have a direct bearing on the events of Part II.
Mersault is arrested and imprisoned for the murder. He is not worried about his case, for he
feels the jury will understand how the shooting was not intentional. He does not hire his own
attorney, but accepts the court appointed one. When the attorney tries to get Mersault to
slant the truth about his reactions to his mother’s death, he refuses, for Mersault values
honesty and is true to himself. He also fails to see the relationship between his case and his
feelings for his mother. Mersault also refuses to see the chaplain, who eventually barges in to
Mersault’s cell. When Mersault refuses to confess his guilt and beg forgiveness, the chaplain
reacts with disbelief. When he tires to pray for Mersault, he screams at the chaplain. In a
similar manner, he refuses to react to the crucifix that the magistrate shows him and reveals
that he does not believe in God. The magistrate believes that he has never met a more
taciturn, self-centered, naïve, honest, and blunt criminal. He also thinks that Mersault is so
hard-hearted that he must be an "antichrist." The jury has the same reaction to Mersault.
They do not comprehend any of his explanations and feel that his lack of emotion and
remorse is inhuman. As a result, they judge him to be guilty of murder and sentence him to
death by the guillotine. Mersault can hardly believe the verdict, for he has never thought of
himself as a criminal. In the end, however, he approaches his death like he has approached his
life - with indifference. He thinks perhaps that after death his existence may be less absurd; he
may be more closely aligned with the universe.

The stranger summary

More Related Content

What's hot

Viewers also liked

Similar to The stranger summary

The stranger summary