Free Essay About Defend Meursault On The Murder Of The Arab In The Book The Stranger

Arguably, Meursault, the young man living in Algiers, is very strange compared to other people and even maybe the rest of humanity. In retrospect, his strange behaviors and detachment from his emotions would likely make him wonder for the psychology community. Similarly, in the book, his actions and indifference earn him a backlash both at the trial and at his neighborhood. People are more concerned with his lack of emotions towards his mother’s death than towards the fact that he killed a man in cold blood even after convincing his friend Raymond not to kill him. While many would argue that Meursault killed the Arab for no reason, I choose to believe that he had several reasons that prompted him to pull that trigger even if he would not recognize them. This paper will attempt to explain these reasons and establish if Meursault was a killer or not based on his actions on the first five chapters of the book.
Secondly, Meursault’s life was taking too many changes a sharp difference from his earlier life that he had been leading as explained by Cumus earlier in the book. Initially, his life was organized in a monotonous and obvious routine that Meursault felt in control. Aside from the sudden spontaneous acts that he did to break the monotony, he was quite contented with everything else because he did not care much. However, in the few recent days, he had become engaged to Marie, received a notice that he would be transferred and promoted to Paris, and even acquired new friends who were Raymond and Masson. In addition, the eventful day had taken place on a Sunday a day that Meursault had earlier said that was confused. If the readers add all these up, together with his psychological difference, they will surely have an understanding to why Meursault chose to shoot the Arab something that he would not have considered doing given that he had a choice.
Finally, it is important to note that the sun might have had a huge impact concerning his actions. Though it is not logical that the heat and the sun might bother someone to the point of killing another person, readers should first analyze the story and emphasis that the author had put in the sun in relation to Meursault’s life. First, the sun was really scorching on the day of his mother’s funeral, which really bothered him. His supervisor at work had also told him that he might have to move to Paris where he would miss the sun and the ocean. On the fateful day, the sun was also bothering him while he walked to the beach, and when the light reflected on the knife that the Arab had brandished, it might have triggered a hidden emotion that had not surfaced before. As a result, the sun might have been a pushed him to kill the Arab even if he did not intend to.
Upon reading the second part of the book, the reader might conclude that Meursault was a killer way before he had the opportunity to shoot the Arab. However, evidence in the first chapters of the book reveal that Meursault was not a killer and killing the Arab might have been, as a result to other emotions that were bothering him particularly on that fateful day. First, Meursault was indifferent to people as well as relations as explained in chapter two. The simple mental notes that he made while going on with his life and the routine that he had grown accustomed to being the most important things in his life. Emotions, relationships, and human attachments did not harbor great importance to him. He also held life and death as meaningless rites of passage and therefore if he did not care much about life or death; he would not have thought that killing would make a huge difference. Consequently, he was never a killer because killers actually know the value of life and that is why they take it.
Another reason why he readers should realize that Meursault was not a killer is because, in chapter three, the author says that Meursault did not have negative or positive reactions to the plight of Raymond’s lover whom he bate often and even planned an elaborate event to spread rumors that she was a prostitute. Not only did he not have reactions to the plight of the girl, but also to the life or events that took place in the lives of people that surrounded him. Since such things did not bother him, he never would have been bothered by the actions of people to resort to kill. As a result, Meursault was never a killer, and the events of that day were just but an isolated event that did not reveal anything about Meursault.