THE STRANGER

Key Things to Keep in Mind

• Form
• Word Choice
• Perspective
• Details
• Developement

Form

• Often a complex sentence followed by short sentences(pg. 21, 34).
• Tension formed with multiple short sentences(pg.55)
• Observations drive paragraph formation (pg. 55,
• The short Dependent Clauses show the stagnant fact-based Mersault
• Understand Characters through Form

Metaphors

• Marie is "...like a flower" (Camus 34).
• Raymond has "...a nose like a boxer's" (Camus 28).
• "...robot woman..." (Camus 121) "...robotlike movements..." (Camus 43).
• "The sound was like the muffled jabber of parakeets" (Camus 5).
• "...she said, I had on a 'funeral face'" (Camus 47)

Chapter Organization

• Camus leaves us hanging often
• Last Sentence always has meaning
• Part 1- Freedom Part 2- Prison
• Change^

Character Changes

• Never Emotions... until the end
• He sees Details
• Sense-Perseptions
• Uses other characters' observations
• to show his emotions.

Quotes

• "I felt that I had been happy
• and I was happy again" (Camus 123).
• Direct v.s. Indirect
• Indirect ways of showing emotion at
• the beginning of the Novel (example)

Shifts in EMOTIONS CONT.

• Instead of Fear:
• "It seemed to me as if the sky split open from one end to the other to
• rain down fire (Camus 59).
• HEAT as a repeated symbol (pg. 101, pg 15,)
• Emotionally Estranged descriptions and dynamics tell us about characters

Instead of Loyalty/Love

• "Afterwards he wanted to go to
• a whorehouse, but I said no,
• because I don't like that" (Camus 38)
• Example 2- Part 1 Chapter 4
• emotionally estranged descriptions

Emotions

• Mersault feels little (boredom, fatique)
• values based on utility
• descriptions mechanical
• descriptions of scenes
• (11,12, 100, 47)

CHANGE AS THEME

• "I told Salamano that he could get another
• dog, but he was right to point out that he was
• used to this one" (Camus 44).
• "His life had changed now and he wasn't sure
• what he was going to do" (Camus 46).

CHANGE CONT.

• "I said that people never change
• their lives, that in any case one life
• was as good as another and that
• I wasn't dissatisfied with mine here
• at all" (Camus 41).

Disscussion

• Can you think of some examples where heat is used to describe emotion?
• Do you think Camus' word choice depicted Mersault's objective perspective?
• How do other characters change in the book? How is the change shown?
• Why did Camus write this? What is the purpose of Mersault as a character?
• How does Marie contrast with Mersault? Emotionalism v.s. Rationalism?