Mankind’s fatal hubris is their insistence on taking their lives too seriously. Days and weeks and years go by as plans are laid to create a better world or to change lives or to just live comfortably and happily; but while dreams are dreamt and wishes made, time ticks on until the only time that is able to be had on this green Earth is spent on the futile efforts of tomorrow. The universe moves in its motions of alternating predictability and spontaneity with the rhyme and reason of a madman. It is not merciful or biased or hateful or influenced, but rather it is indifferent to the mediocrity of life. In the vastness of space, to live in the world is comparable to being a single spark in a never-ending lightning storm. To a human soul who …show more content…
Death haunts the footsteps of the living, a reminder of the deadline that steadily draws nearer, unmoved by purpose, hope, and previous engagements. The greatest irony of life is that no one comes out alive. If there is a flaw in Meursault’s shroud of the impartiality to the customs of life, his likeness in mindset to that of the universe, it is his mortality. When confronted with the death of a close relative, who, by all society’s accounts, he should mourn, he, in opposition to all of society, does not lament the demise. “Mother died today. Or, maybe, yesterday; I can’t be sure.” (4) In fact, he continues on in his routine as he has ever done before, moving mindlessly through the motions of life, nonetheless staying immobile in the midst of life’s turmoil, even when encountering its deepest treasure troves: hate, jealousy, and anger; humor, joy, and love. Yet when he is confronted with his own demise, it is then that he fully evaluates himself, not just as an outcast or an observer, but also as one who will live and die and be expunged from the turbulence of time without so much as a thumbprint on the world. As people say, ‘life will go on.’ However, though Camus uses Meursault as a symbol of absurdity, no more worthy, condemnable, or predictable than the universe, Meursault takes a step into life at the moment of his immanent death. Camus, through Meursault, urges the readers to step forward in …show more content…
Culture, despite its many everyday evils, has a moral and social system that everyone living in the world is expected, and perhaps even required, to follow. There are do’s and don’ts for every situation, restrictions on freedom in a world where free will reigns supreme, and societal beliefs that, when challenged, can lead to true danger for the challengers. In Camus’ The Stranger Meursault is not tried for the murder he committed, of which he is undoubtedly guilty, but his lack of conformity to social norms. “This man, who is morally guilty of his mother’s death…” the prosecutor says in his conclusion. Camus continues to write in Meursault’s voice, “Really, he said, I had no soul, there was nothing human about me, not one of those moral qualities which normal men possess had any place in my mentality.” (63, 64) The man is executed, removed forever and entirely from the world, for a crime he did not commit. The question of whether Meursault deserves to die is poignant throughout the end of the novel. Whether a murder of another man is cause to call for the murderers death is a matter of opinion, and opinions today differ greatly. The murder is not what leads to the passing of Camus’ Meursault, however. Instead his nonconformity, absurdity, and disjointed place in the structure of society were the leading factors in the jury’s decision