Narrative Technique and Language in Albert Camus The Stranger - Essay Example

Submitted: Narrative Technique and Language in Albert Camus “The Stranger” In the novella “The Stranger” by Albert Camus, language is used in several ways which serve to reflect and emphasise the plot, themes and characterisation in the text. The story revolves around the protagonist and narrator Meursault, who murders an Arab man for no apparent reason and is thus put on trial in front of a jury who become utterly enraged and perplexed at the characters lack of motive, reason, morality and empathy. Camus reflected his thoughts on moral ambiguity and the societal treatment of murderers and terrorists in many of his works including this one. The reader is presented with a murderer protagonist who is devoid of motive, reason or logic for the crime he has committed (Dissanayake 1). Camus uses the language of the narrator and the voice of the narrator, as a device through which the reader may understand the perspective of Meursault, and as a way to reflect aspects in the development of the story. Meursault as a character is utterly remarkable, in that he is quite unremarkable in every possible way (Day 84). He appears to have no unusual or outrageous attributes, opinions, qualities or flaws when the reader is initially introduced to him. He does nothing special, holds no special job, is not living under any unusual circumstances, does not discuss any extreme or judgemental personal opinions and is far from being emotionally distinctive. Meursault leads an existence in which “days are added to days without rhyme or reason … [and his life] is an interminable and monotonous addition” (Camus 16). However, it is this lack of special traits and engaged interaction in society and life that makes the character, paradoxically, very remarkable and unusual. As the reader unveils the protagonists’ inner thoughts and plot development of the story, it becomes clear that this character is remarkably detached from society in every way. Furthermore, not only is he detached from society, he is detached from life itself including family and relationships. He displays an unsettling degree of amorality and total lack of judgement of other people’s actions, thoughts and behaviours. Indeed, his detachment goes even further as we realise that he is also detached from his own emotions and self-identity to the extent that he appears to be lacking in both. From the very beginning of the story, Meursaults language very effectively allows the reader insight into his way of thinking. His sentences are consistently brief and concise right from the start, “Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday. I can’t be sure” (Camus 1). His lack of elaboration or explanation is indicative of his amoral and overwhelmingly logical attitude and personality. At the beginning of the story in particular, he does not offer much in the way of descriptions, imagery, expression of feelings or emotions or any forms of elaboration. Meursault gets to the point, saying as little as possible in order to communicate his message without overstating or offering unnecessary details of any kind. This serves to convey him as a highly logical, unfeeling character. In his grammar, he rarely uses verbs or adjectives that convey feelings such as ‘felt’, but rather uses descriptors such as ‘decided’ and ‘thought’ to describe his actions and ideas. We begin to see a change in language used when Meursault recounts the day of the murder. His language here is noticeably more descriptive, vivid, imaginative and elaborate, unlike earlier in the story, for example “the heat was beginning to scorch my cheeks; beads of sweat were gathering in my eyebrows. It was just the same sort of heat as at my mother’s funeral, and I had the same disagreeable sensations—especially in my forehead, where all the veins seemed to be bursting through the skin” (Camus 38). Such a vivid and detailed description is unusual for the character thus far, which highlights the fact that this event or recollection, has more meaning even though the character appears to be ignorant of the fact. After he kills the Arab man, he states “I knew I’d shattered the balance of the day, the spacious calm of this beach on which I had been happy. But I fired four shots more into the inert body, on which they left no visible trace. And each successive shot was another loud, fateful rap on the door of my undoing” (Camus 38). Even the mention of his being ‘happy’ is suggestive of the fact that the character understands the impact of what he has done, in his own way. After Meursault accepts the inevitability of death and finds peace in the futility of life only after being condemned to death, his language changes as he begins to describe simple, pleasurable things like warmth, stars and peace of mind, for example, at the end of the story he comments “I must have had a longish sleep, for, when I woke, the stars were shining down on my face. Sounds of the countryside came faintly in, and the cool night air, veined with smells’ of earth and salt, fanned my cheeks. The marvelous peace of the sleepbound summer night flooded through me like a tide. Then, just on the edge of daybreak, I heard a steamer’s siren” (Camus 75). The appreciation of the physical world and all of it’s tangible elements highlight the fact that his perspective has now changed to one of appreciation and some sort of happiness and peace. It is also at the end that he finally makes allusion to his mothers death in that, “Almost for the first time in many months I thought of my mother. And now, it seemed to me, I understood why at her life’s end she had taken on a “fiance”, why she’d played at making a fresh start. There, too, in that Home where lives were flickering out, the dusk came as a mournful solace. With death so near, Mother must have felt like someone on the brink of freedom, ready to start life all over again” (Camus 75). This is the first time that Meursault imagines how his mother must have felt, and related himself to her in some way as he appears to understand her perspective, “ And I, too, felt ready to start life all over again. It was as if that great rush of anger had washed me clean, emptied me of hope, and, gazing up at the dark sky spangled with its signs and stars, for the first time, the first, I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe” (Camus 76). He also realises that he has been happy all along and states this quite directly “[I] realize[d] that I’d been happy, and that I was happy still” (Camus 76). Such an exclamation of happiness is new to the character and this shift in language contrasts with his earlier style which is devoid of elaboration, enthusiasm or detail. In “The Stranger”, Camus presents us with a very unusual and quite shocking protagonist in the character of Meursault, who is utterly without morals, judgements or any kind of belief system. Lacking in motivation or remorse for his crime, he is judged to be a type of monster by society, and condemned to death (van den Hoven 210). Though Meursault does not appear to have any sort of motive or reasoning for the crime, he also ends up in a state of peacefulness on receiving news of the jury’s verdict. The journey taken by the character is reflected in the style and language used. At the beginning, the style is clipped, brief and non-descriptive while also being devoid of imagery or elaborative language. However as the story moves on and the plot develops, we see Meursault’s language change, particularly by the end of the story. As he comes to a realisation of inner peace and acceptance, his language is simultaneously expressive and elaborate while containing more vivid imagery and positive terminology. Works Cited Camus, Albert. The Outsider. London: Penguin, 2000. Print. Day, Patrick. "A Comparative Study Of Crime And Punishment In Ousmane Sembene's Le Docker Noir And Albert Camus's L'etranger." Africa Today 52.3 (2006): 83-96. Academic Search Premier. Web. 12 Apr. 2012. Dissanayake, Wimal. The Moral Passion of Albert Camus. Web. 12 May 2012. van den Hoven, Adrian. "Sartre's Conception of Historiality and Temporality: The Quest For A Motive In Camus' The Stranger And Sartre's Dirty Hands." Sartre Studies International 11.1/2 (2005): 207-221. 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