The Stranger Summary – Albert Camus

Albert Camus’s The Stranger (L’Étranger), published in 1942, is a novel about Meursault, a French Algerian whose emotional indifference leads him from an ordinary life to murder, trial, and a confrontation with death.

The Stranger Main Characters analysis

• Meursault — The protagonist, a French Algerian and minor office worker who appears emotionally detached from the world around him.

• Marie — Meursault’s former coworker and lover, who hopes to marry him.

• Raymond — Meursault’s neighbor, a warehouse worker reputed to be a pimp. He becomes involved in a conflict with his Arab mistress.

• Salamano — Meursault’s elderly neighbor, who lives with an old dog.

• The Arab — The brother of Raymond’s mistress, whom Meursault kills.

• The chaplain — A priest who visits Meursault before his execution and attempts to lead him toward God.

The Stranger Summary

The Stranger Part 1 Summary

Meursault, a French Algerian living in the suburbs and working as a minor clerk, learns that his mother has died. Several years earlier, he had placed her in an institution for the elderly because his salary was insufficient to support her. Meursault sets off for her funeral.

At the institution, he behaves in a manner clearly inappropriate for a grieving son. After speaking with the director, he spends the night beside his mother’s coffin but does not even want to look at her body. He chats about trivial matters with the caretaker, calmly drinks coffee, smokes, and sleeps. Later, he sees his mother’s friends from the institution gathered around the coffin. They clearly disapprove of his apparent lack of feeling. Meursault buries his mother with the same indifference and returns to the city.

At home, he sleeps for a long time. Then he goes swimming in the sea and meets Marie, a former coworker who expresses sympathy for his loss. That evening, they become lovers. The following day, Meursault spends his time by the window, slowly reflecting on how, for some reason, practically nothing in his life has changed.

The next evening, after returning from work, Meursault meets his neighbors: the elderly Salamano and Raymond, a warehouse worker reputed to be a pimp. Raymond has an Arab mistress whom he wants to teach a lesson. He asks Meursault to help him write a letter inviting her to meet him so that he can beat her. Meursault witnesses their violent quarrel, which the police eventually break up, and agrees to testify in Raymond’s favor.

At work, Meursault’s employer offers him a promotion and a transfer to Paris. Meursault refuses because he believes it would make no difference to his life. Marie then asks whether he intends to marry her, but the prospect does not interest him either.

On Sunday, Marie, Meursault, and Raymond go to the seaside to visit Masson, a friend of Raymond’s. At the bus stop, they are alarmed to encounter a group of Arabs, including the brother of Raymond’s mistress. After breakfast and swimming, they go for a walk and see the Arabs again. By now, the friends are certain that they have been followed.

A fight breaks out, and Raymond is stabbed with a knife. The Arabs flee. After treating Raymond’s wound, the three friends return to the beach and encounter the same Arabs once more. Raymond hands Meursault his revolver, but no confrontation takes place.

Meursault remains alone, overcome by the heat and alcohol. When he sees the Arab who had wounded Raymond again, he shoots and kills him.

The Stranger Part 2 Summary

Meursault is arrested and brought in for questioning. He thinks his case is quite straightforward, but his lawyer and the examining magistrate disagree. Nobody can understand the motives behind the crime, while Meursault himself feels only irritation at what has happened.

The investigation lasts eleven months. The prison cell becomes his home, and his life comes to a standstill. Even his freedom of thought seems to disappear after his visit with Marie. Meursault grows bored and begins recalling the past. He gradually realizes that even a single day of life can fill a hundred years of imprisonment, so many memories remain. Little by little, his sense of time begins to fade.

The case goes before a jury. The courtroom is crowded and unbearably stuffy. Meursault cannot distinguish the faces around him and feels as though he does not belong there. The witnesses are questioned at length, and a bleak picture emerges.

The prosecutor accuses Meursault of being heartless. He did not shed a single tear at his mother’s funeral, did not even want to look at her, and became involved with a woman less than a day later. He associates with a pimp and kills a man without any apparent reason. The defendant has neither human feelings nor moral principles, the prosecutor argues. He demands the death penalty.

The defense lawyer argues the opposite. Meursault is an honest worker and an exemplary son who supported his mother for as long as he could. A momentary loss of consciousness led him to ruin, and the harshest punishment he could face would be remorse and a guilty conscience.

The verdict, however, is death. In the name of the entire French people, Meursault will be publicly beheaded in the town square. He does not understand the inevitability of what is about to happen, but eventually accepts it. Life is not so wonderful that one should cling to it. And if death is inevitable anyway, it makes no difference when or how it comes.

Before the execution, a priest visits Meursault in his cell. But his attempts to turn Meursault toward God are futile. Meursault sees no meaning in eternal life and does not want to spend the time he has left thinking about God. He pours out all his accumulated anger upon the priest.

On the threshold of death, Meursault feels the breath of darkness rising toward him from the abyss of the future, a darkness chosen for him by a single, inevitable fate. He is ready to experience everything again and opens his soul to the gentle indifference of the world.