The Stranger Theme Card

Quotes
-“Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don’t know.”
-“It seemed to me as if the sky split open from one end to the other to rain down fire. My whole being tensed and I squeeze my hand around the revolver. The trigger gave.”
-“When I was a student, I had lots of ambitions like that. But when I had to give up my studies I learned very quickly that none of it really mattered.”
-“Everything was happening without my participation. My fate was being decided without anyone so much as asking my opinion.”

Conflicts
-man vs. society
-reason vs. emotion
-complacency vs. active participation

Vehicles
-imagery
-diction
-tone
-irony

Subjects
-alienation
-detachment
-death

Plot Summary
Meursault, an emotionally detached man living in Algiers, gets involved in the murder of an Arab man who stalks his friend Raymond shortly after the death of his mother. He is arrested and goes on trial, but the prosecutors focus on his lack of emotion after his mother’s death more than his actual actions. Meursault is sentenced to death.

Themes
-The death of the individual affects no one outside of the individual, as the world continues on just as it did before.
-Society is disrupted by any action that has no reason or meaning.

Title Significance
Both Meursault and the Arab are “strangers.” Meursault is a stranger because he has no real part in society and has different notions and ideas behinds his actions than the majority of the world. The Arab is a stranger because he and the motivation behind his actions are unknown and unknowable to Meursault.

Characters
Meursault
Raymond
Maman
Salamano
Marie
Perez
The prosecutor
The magistrate
The Arab