The Stranger's Meursault: Hero or Victim?

A Character Analysis and Comparison with Pascual Duarte

By: Dave Luton

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Length: 21 mins

Publisher's summary

Table of Contents Introduction – 3 Synopsis - 6 Meursault as Hero and Martyr – 10 A Comparison with Pascual Duarte – 12 Why I Feel Sorry for Meursault - 15 Why I Don’t Think that Meursault is a Hero – 18 Conclusion - 21 References - 23 If anyone asks yours truly, “What’s your favorite book ever?”, the answer for me is easy: Albert Camus’s The Stranger. I’ve read a little about the book’s author who tragically died at at a young age in a traffic accident in 1960. Even so, I can’t say that I really know or understand this man. Put another way, I can’t say that philosophically we see eye to eye, although I could safely say that we agree on certain issues. I also can’t say that I know or understand his purpose for writing The Stranger (published in 1942) or how he felt about the main character or how he wanted us, the readers, to understand the same character. I say this even after having read quotes from the author about the book and its main character (identified merely by the French surname Meursault). The novel The Stranger by the French writer Albert Camus is the story of a Frenchman (only identified by his surname Meursault) from Algeria during the 30’s or 40’s who kills and Arab (he claims, unintentionally) and is condemned to die by the guillotine. Some critics have claimed that Meursault is a victim of society, and others have even claimed that he’s a type of hero. I would like to argue that although Meursault might be a victim, he’s not a hero. To make my case, I plan to cite quotes from different critics, as well as the novel itself; including a comparison with the character Pascual Duarte from the novel The Family of Pascual Duarte byt the Spanish writer Camilo José Cela. I hope you like my analysis (or at least that you will find some value in it), keeping in mind that it is merely the opinion of a novice without a degree in literature and who does not work as a professional literary critic.