Narrator: A man receives a telegram: "MOTHER DECEASED. FUNERAL TOMORROW. FAITHFULLY YOURS." He feels little, other than annoyance that he must ask his boss for two days off. At the funeral, he doesn't weep. He observes the heat, the light, the weariness of the attendees. The very next day, he goes for a swim, starts a casual affair with a woman he used to know, and takes her to see a comedy. What kind of person is this? Is he a monster, devoid of human feeling? Or is he something else entirely—a man so radically honest about his own indifference that society itself cannot tolerate his existence? This is the central, unsettling puzzle at the heart of Albert Camus's philosophical masterpiece, The Stranger. The book forces us to confront a man who lives without the comforting illusions of emotion, ambition, or divine purpose, and in doing so, it holds up a mirror to the absurdity of the human condition.

Narrator: The novel introduces its protagonist, Meursault, as a man fundamentally disconnected from the emotional expectations of society. He lives a life guided by physical sensations—the warmth of the sun, the taste of coffee, the pleasure of a cigarette—rather than by introspection or emotional response. His defining characteristic is a profound and honest indifference. This isn't a chosen philosophy, but an innate state of being. He doesn't perform grief, love, or ambition because he simply doesn't feel them in the way society dictates he should.

This detachment is starkly illustrated in the days following his mother's death. The day after the funeral, an event that society expects to be shrouded in solemn mourning, Meursault decides to go swimming. At the public pool, he runs into Marie Cardona, a former typist from his office. Their interaction is light and physical. He helps her onto a raft, their bodies touch, and they float together, enjoying the sun. That evening, they go to a movie and then spend the night together. When Marie later asks him if he loves her, his response is brutally honest and devoid of romantic pretense. He tells her the question "had no meaning, really; but I supposed I didn’t." He agrees to marry her with the same casual indifference, simply because she asked and it required no effort to say yes. For Meursault, his mother’s death has not changed anything fundamental about his life. His world remains a sequence of immediate, physical moments, unburdened by the weight of past sorrow or future plans.

Narrator: Meursault’s indifference extends beyond personal relationships and into the realm of morality. He is not immoral, but rather amoral, operating without a conventional compass of right and wrong. This passivity makes him susceptible to being drawn into the conflicts of others, not through malice, but through a simple lack of reason to refuse. His entanglement with his neighbor, Raymond Sintès, is a clear example of this dangerous inertia.

Raymond, a man rumored to be a pimp, is embroiled in a sordid affair with a Moorish woman he suspects of infidelity. He confides in Meursault, detailing how he has already beaten her and now wants to punish her further. Raymond’s plan is to lure her back with a letter, only to humiliate her. He asks Meursault to write this letter for him. Meursault, seeing no reason not to, agrees. He listens to Raymond’s story without judgment and composes the letter as requested. He feels that helping is easier than not helping. This single act of passive compliance sets in motion the chain of events that will lead to tragedy. By writing the letter, Meursault becomes an accomplice in Raymond’s world of violence and revenge, binding his fate to a conflict he has no personal stake in. His detachment prevents him from recognizing the moral implications of his actions, demonstrating that a life without judgment can inadvertently lead to complicity in harm.

Narrator: The climax of the novel is not driven by passion, hatred, or a calculated decision, but by the overwhelming force of the physical world. Throughout the first part of the book, the oppressive heat and blinding sun of Algiers are a constant presence, mirroring Meursault's internal state of being overwhelmed by sensation rather than thought. On a fateful Sunday, this environmental pressure culminates in a senseless act of violence.

Meursault, Marie, and Raymond are at a beach house owned by Raymond's friend. They encounter two Arab men on the beach, one of whom is the brother of Raymond's spurned mistress. A fight breaks out, and Raymond is slashed with a knife. Later, feeling the suffocating heat, Meursault walks back down to the beach alone, seeking the cool of a spring behind a large rock. There, he finds the same Arab man who had cut Raymond. The man is resting in the shade. The sun is blinding, the heat a physical blow. As the Arab draws his knife, the light glints off the blade, searing Meursault’s eyes. He describes the sky opening up to "rain down fire." In this moment of sensory overload, rational thought evaporates. He feels the cool metal of the revolver Raymond had given him earlier. The trigger gives way. He fires once, and then, after a pause, four more times into the inert body. His action is a reaction—not to the man, but to the sun, the heat, the blinding light. It is the ultimate absurd act, a murder without motive, born from the crushing indifference of the physical universe.

Narrator: In the second part of the novel, the narrative shifts from the sun-drenched beaches of Algiers to the sterile, artificial world of the courtroom. Here, Meursault discovers that the facts of his crime are secondary. What is truly on trial is his soul. The legal system, representing society's demand for order and meaning, cannot comprehend an act without a clear motive. Faced with this void, the prosecution constructs a narrative not around the shooting, but around Meursault's character.

The prosecutor builds his case by methodically detailing Meursault's "monstrous" nature, using his behavior at his mother's funeral as the primary evidence. Witnesses are called to testify. The warden of the home notes that Meursault showed no tears and didn't wish to see his mother's body one last time. The doorkeeper testifies that Meursault smoked a cigarette and drank coffee by the coffin. His relationship with Marie, which began the day after the funeral, is painted as evidence of his heartless depravity. The actual murder of the Arab man becomes almost an afterthought, presented merely as the logical outcome of a soulless existence. Meursault is condemned not for killing a man, but for failing to cry at his mother's funeral. He is an outsider because he refuses to play the game of social pretense, and for this, society finds him guilty long before the jury delivers its verdict.

Narrator: Sentenced to death, Meursault finally confronts the ultimate absurdity: the inevitability of his own death. In his prison cell, stripped of all distractions, he reaches a profound philosophical awakening. This culminates in his final, explosive confrontation with the prison chaplain, who visits him against his will to offer the consolations of God and the afterlife. Meursault, who has lived his life without religious belief, rejects him utterly. He grabs the chaplain, shouting that none of the man's certainties are worth a single strand of a woman's hair.

In this final outburst, Meursault solidifies his worldview. He understands that life has no intrinsic meaning, that the universe is silent and indifferent to human hopes and suffering, and that all people—the pious and the sinner alike—are condemned to the same fate. This realization does not bring him despair. Instead, it brings him peace. By embracing the "gentle indifference of the world," he feels a kinship with it. He has lived a life true to himself, without lies or pretense, and in accepting his death, he feels he has been happy and is happy still. His final thought is a complete inversion of societal values. He hopes that on the day of his execution, a large crowd will gather to greet him with "howls of execration," or cries of hatred. In this shared, intense moment of raw human feeling, he would, for the first and last time, feel a true connection with the world, and no longer be a stranger.

Narrator: The single most important takeaway from The Stranger is its unflinching exploration of the Absurd—the unbridgeable gap between humanity's deep-seated need for meaning and purpose, and the universe's cold, silent indifference to that need. Meursault is the embodiment of this conflict. He is a man who ceases to search for meaning and instead simply exists, an act that society finds so threatening it must extinguish him.

The book's most challenging idea is that Meursault's honesty, in a world built on comforting lies and social performances, is the real crime for which he is executed. It leaves us with a startling question: How much of our own lives—our grief, our love, our ambition—is a genuine reflection of who we are, and how much is a performance for the benefit of a world that, like Meursault's jury, is always watching and ready to pass judgment?