Before I finished reading The Stranger by Albert Camus I was already thinking on humans futile attempts to give life a meaning. Mersault however, being a human too, doesn't desperately try to give life a meaning, to find some "rational" reason to keep moving forward. He just lives life, and keeps moving on. No explanation or reasoning needed.
"We as people desire to make rational decisions despite existing in an irrational universe."
I strongly believe that this existentialist though truly reflects this novel. Mersault is the contrary of what this relfects. He doesn't seek to give life a meaning. To Mersault life is life, and it doesn't have to be explained. Killing the arab, or getting married to Marie, or the fact of his mother dying have no apparent reason to happen. They just happen, and thats life, and no one should argue with it. "I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself—so like a brother, really—I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again." (Pg. 123) To him the universe is irrational, it is indifferent to human sentiment or feeling, just as him. He feels happy about it, he doesn't find the need to explain everything that happens during each second of his existence, because things just happen irrationally and there is no logical explanation to them.
Mersault would be better connected to this existentialist thought: "Everybody is here; everybody exists, but there is no reason as to why." Everyone has different opinions, and what he thinks is just as right or as wrong as someone else's. Humans are fools. They try to believe in things that don't exist, try to make sense of everything and be logical. Even if that isn't possible we find ways to explain things, maybe they are wrong or incorrect, but they make us feel good, so we force ourselves to accept them. Mersault, just accepts that there doesn't have to be an explanation for everything. However, society isn't that nice as to not judge him. They criticize him, reject him and even hate him for not believing. He is seen as a stranger, someone not belonging to that judgmental community, what we nicely call society.
Mersault would be better connected to this existentialist thought: "Everybody is here; everybody exists, but there is no reason as to why." Everyone has different opinions, and what he thinks is just as right or as wrong as someone else's. Humans are fools. They try to believe in things that don't exist, try to make sense of everything and be logical. Even if that isn't possible we find ways to explain things, maybe they are wrong or incorrect, but they make us feel good, so we force ourselves to accept them. Mersault, just accepts that there doesn't have to be an explanation for everything. However, society isn't that nice as to not judge him. They criticize him, reject him and even hate him for not believing. He is seen as a stranger, someone not belonging to that judgmental community, what we nicely call society.
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