The Stranger

Main ideas

• A narrative enactment of indifference and lucidity.
• Society’s need to make a life legible.

Important themes

Reading context

A novel rather than a treatise, published in 1942. Meursault's refusal to perform the feelings expected of him is what condemns him, more than the killing itself.

How to approach it

Read it in one or two sittings and watch the trial: the prosecution builds its case on his behaviour at his mother's funeral. Then read The Myth of Sisyphus for the argument behind it.