This might be a bit of a stretch but just hear me out.
We've discussed in class the obvious lack of emotion in Meursault's character. The other characters mention it multiple times and even he admits that the things that everyone else finds important hardly matters to him. We attributed his antisocial behavior and apparent lack of a conscience to him being a sociopath.
The term sociopath strikes fear in many people. Sociopaths are known for being dangerous and unpredictable people. However, at the beginning of the novel, Meursault doesn't show much violent behavior. In fact, he is incredibly passive and that is what eventually leads him to commit the murder. He seems to wake up to a nightmare, finding that he is holding a gun and just killed a man.
Meusault is then put on trial. The facts are very clear: Meursault is the one who committed the murder. Meursault admits that he is the one who did it and that he doesn't really feel any remorse. If it is not his guilt that is being decided then what? The lawyers, the magistrate, and then the court are all puzzled by Meursault's behavior. The trial seems to be judging Meursault's character rather than his conviction.
The judgement of Meursault's sociopathic behavior immediately reminded of Sherlock, the BBC TV show. While Sherlock Holmes is a genius, he is also antisocial, impulsive, and has a general disregard for other people; all signs point to sociopath. In one of the stories, people start to realize how potentially dangerous he is, to the point that they accuse him of having made up all the murder cases just so he can solve them.
Their argument has sound logic, and yet, as an audience we feel for Sherlock. He is the hero of the stories and we want him to win even if he is crazy. Meursault is similar. As readers, we have followed him through the whole story. Meursault is the narrator and we can see his reactions to everything he experiences. Camus asks us to weigh Meursault's potential threat against his value as a compelling character. I think Meursault's simplistic philosophy of honesty counts for more than his sociopathic murder in terms of being the hero of the story.
I definitely agree that Sherlock is a sociopath, but Meursault doesn't quite fit the profile for me. Sociopaths are generally manipulative, entitled, and pathological liars. He does lack a sense of remorse and seem to be impulsive, but I feel like he is far too truthful and social to really be a sociopath. His impulsiveness and lack of remorse seem to stem from the meaninglessness he sees in life, death, and love. It isn't that he can't feel anything, he just only seems to experience happiness from direct stimuli and doesn't get joy from the fulfillment most people do. He has his own code of values that are much more primal than what most of us have. I think that an argument can definitely be made for him being a sociopath, but I feel like it limits Meursault's ideology too much.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree that Mersault while Mersault is the main character, he isn't a hero. In fact, I just saw a Wikipedia page where he is listed as an anti-hero. I think that Mersault has some qualities of a sociopath, but it's hard to definitely characterize him as a sociopath. No two people are the same, thus no two sociopaths are the same. It is significant that Mersault doesn't feel guilt for the murder, though. But Mersault still feels some things, which makes me question if he is a sociopath or just a detached person.
ReplyDeleteI like that you bring up the idea that because we have been following Meursault around throughout the whole book, we react differently than we normally would if we were in, say, the courtroom. I have no doubt that if I was a member of the jury during Meursault's case that I would easily have voted guilty and given Meursault a severe punishment. However, since we as readers get to see how Meursault approaches things and how his mind works, it seems as though we have more sympathy for him. We know how he felt in the sun when the shot the Arab, and we know what a typical Sunday afternoon of his looks like, sitting on the balcony doing nothing in particular. Although these two examples are very different in their context and content itself, the idea is the same. Because we see what is going on inside Meursault's head during the time, we see similarities in both ways. He is "normal" in that a lot of the things he does are normal, but he is also a bit of a hero/sociopath in a way, in that he shows a lot of indifference towards seemingly important situations. This doesn't strictly prove anything, but certainly provides some perspective on Meursault's outlook on life.
ReplyDeleteMy ideas on Meursault are very conflicting. I feel sympathetic towards him because there's more to him internally than what meets the eye, things that they jury doesn't see, but at the end of the day he did kill someone. It's interesting that you brought up the social misconceptions of mental illness, and I think that that idea makes it almost uncomfortable and tricky to really voice our ideas about him because we see that something is off about him, but it's such a strong subject that requires careful articulation to not offend anyone.
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