The Myth of Sisyphus
Albert Camus
The Myth of Sisyphus
Published in the same year, the essay defines the absurd that the novel approaches through Meursault's experience.
Read our takeThe Stranger
Albert Camus
The Stranger
by Albert Camus
A clerk in Algiers kills a man, then faces a court more interested in his behavior at his mother’s funeral.
- 1942
About Albert Camus
The story, briefly
Spoiler-freeCamus’s 1942 novel about Meursault, a French Algerian office worker whose flat first-person narration records a funeral, a beach killing and a trial without offering the feelings society expects. Short, exact and morally unsettling, it is the clearest entry point to Camus and should be read before the philosophical explanations built around it.
The story, in more detail
Meursault learns that his mother has died at a care home outside Algiers. He attends the vigil and funeral, but he does not perform the grief that the people around him expect. The next day he swims with Marie Cardona, begins a relationship with her and returns to his ordinary routine.
Through his neighbor Raymond Sintès, Meursault becomes involved in a conflict with an unnamed Arab man. During a hot day at the beach, Meursault returns alone to a spring where the man is resting. The glare, heat and physical discomfort dominate Meursault's account of the moment in which he fires a revolver.
The second half follows the investigation, trial and imprisonment. The court examines the killing, but witnesses spend striking amounts of time describing Meursault's behavior at his mother's funeral. The case becomes a judgment of whether he has the feelings and beliefs society expects a person to display.
The full plot
Part One begins with Meursault traveling from Algiers to his mother's care home in Marengo. He sits through the vigil, drinks coffee, smokes and declines to view the body. After the funeral he returns to Algiers, swims with his former coworker Marie Cardona and spends the evening with her. He later agrees to write a letter for Raymond Sintès, a neighbor who wants to punish his former mistress.
Raymond's dispute draws Meursault and Marie to a beach house owned by Raymond's friend Masson. Raymond is cut in a fight with two Arab men, one of whom is the brother of his former mistress. Later, Meursault walks alone with Raymond's revolver. At a spring he meets one of the men again and shoots him once, then fires four more times into the body.
Part Two follows Meursault in prison and at trial. The prosecutor builds a moral portrait from the funeral: Meursault did not cry, did not know his mother's exact age and went to a comedy film with Marie the next day. The court treats these facts as evidence that he is a dangerous person, while Meursault watches the proceedings with the same distance that marked his earlier narration.
How it ends — spoilers ahead
Why we recommend it
The best place to begin
The novel puts Camus’s central problem into a voice before giving it a philosophical vocabulary.
The voice is the argument
Meursault reports physical facts more readily than emotions. The gap between what he says and what other people expect drives both the style and the trial.
It opens several necessary debates
The novel can be read with Camus's philosophy, but it must also be read within French colonial Algeria and alongside criticism of the murdered man's anonymity.
What this book explores
The people in its pages
Meursault
A French Algerian office worker who narrates the funeral, killing and trial in a restrained first-person voice.
Marie Cardona
Meursault's former coworker and lover, who asks whether he loves her and whether he will marry her.
Raymond Sintès
Meursault's neighbor, whose violent dispute brings the group into conflict at the beach.
The unnamed Arab man
The brother of Raymond's former mistress and the man Meursault kills. Camus does not give him a name.
The prison chaplain
A priest who asks Meursault to turn to God before his execution.
Timeline
1938–1940
Albert Camus develops and writes the novel while living in Algeria and France.
1942
Gallimard publishes L’Étranger in occupied Paris.
1946
Stuart Gilbert's English translation appears as The Outsider in Britain and The Stranger in the United States.
1988
Matthew Ward's American translation restores Maman in the opening and adopts a more direct version of Meursault's voice.
2013
Kamel Daoud publishes The Meursault Investigation, a novel that gives a name and family history to the murdered man.
Book editions
Paperback
- Paperback
- Gallimard
- 1942
- Paperback
- Vintage International
- 1989
- 9780679720201
- Matthew Ward
Reader reviews
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Read our takeThe Stranger: frequently asked questions
What is The Stranger by Albert Camus about?
The Stranger follows Meursault, a French Algerian office worker who kills an unnamed Arab man and is tried in a court that also judges his behavior at his mother's funeral.
Should I read The Stranger first?
Yes. The Stranger is the most accessible first Albert Camus book.
When was The Stranger published?
Gallimard first published L’Étranger in France in 1942, during the German occupation.
Why is the book also called The Outsider?
The Stranger and The Outsider are two English translations of the French title L’Étranger. The title on your copy depends on the publisher and translation.
Why does the trial focus on Meursault's mother?
The prosecutor uses Meursault's conduct at the funeral to argue that he lacks normal human feeling. The trial therefore judges his social behavior as well as the killing.
Is The Stranger an existentialist novel?
It is often taught as existentialist, but Albert Camus rejected that label for himself. The novel is more precisely connected to his idea of the absurd: the conflict between the human demand for meaning and a world that does not provide it.