Mothers Funeral Family Life Essay - 1,505 words

... act that screams of the woman draw the tennant's attention and the police are called. Mersault feels no guilt toward the part he played in having a woman severely beaten. Mersault and Raymond go for a night out to drink some booze and shoot some pool, as if nothing happened. Further evidence of Mersault's persistent nihilism and total lack of empathy for his fellow man. On the way home the two men run into Salamano who has lost his dog.


He is sobbing and crying and really quite shaken. This seems odd to Mersault because he knew how much the old man hated his dog. The old mans crying makes Mersault think of Maman but he doesnt know why. Again he is so out of touch with anything emotional that he doesnt realize he is feeling a touch of grief. The next day Raymond invites Mersault to his friend's beach house that weekend, and he accepts. Marie goes to his house later that day and asks if Marie would like to marry him, and his reply is that it would be OK, for it didnt really matter to him one way or the other.


When she asks him if he loves her, she receives a similar answer. This total lack of caring for even such a monumental and life changing thing as marriage is almost sickening. He really couldnt care less. What he is doing, who he affects or how he is perceived.


That Sunday Mersault, Raymond and Marie make their way to Raymond's friends beach house. On their way out of the building they see a group of Arabs whom Raymond identifies as family of the girlfriend who he beat so severely. The day at the beach house is pleasant enough and everyone is enjoying themselves, swimming, eating and talking. That is until Raymond, his friend Masson and Mersault take a walk down the beach. They encounter the group of Arabs mentioned earlier and a brawl ensues. Raymond gets cut quite badly but manages to land a few blows.


The matter remains unresolved and the two opposing forces separate. Later on, Raymond and Mersault take another walk on the beach and once again meet the Arabs, this time there are only the two of them. Raymond draws a gun before anything is said, Mersault takes it off of him saying that it wouldnt be right to shoot a man, especially without saying something first. The two parties separate with out anything really happening and the two men walk back up to the beach house. Raymond returns to the bungalow while Mersault decides to walk some more. He encounters one of the Arabs.


They contemplate each other for a while and Mersault draws the gun and shoots him several times. Before shooting Mersault talks of the sun beating down on him, The sun was the same as it had been the day Id buried Maman... my forehead especially was hurting me, all the veins in it throbbing under the skin. It was this burning, which I knew I couldnt stand anymore, that made me move forward. He shoots the Arab because the sun was too hot, or so he says. The fact that he compares the sun that day to how it was at his mothers funeral is very important, because he is so unused to and unschooled in emotions that he confuses them with the sun.


What happened is that Mersault's lack of emotion finally catches up with him. Its as if all the passion, emotion and feeling that he has kept bottled up and ignored for so long finally bubbles to the surface and manifest themselves in the murder of another human being. It is at this point of significance that the first half of the book ends and part two begins. This significance of the event is twofold: firstly Mersault has finally made a significant choice about the course of the rest of his life, and he has done something so completely absurd as to be insane. Camus statement on the back cover about absurdity finally starts to make real concrete sense. Of course, this isnt Mersault's first absurd act, his attitude towards marriage and other people is also ridiculous, but not with the appalling force that his murder is.


Up to this point the rest of Camus statement, specifically his reference towards nakedness, does not manifest itself completely, that comes later during Mersault's soul searching while waiting for his execution in prison. During Mersault's trial, the ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

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Essay Tags: raymond, mothers funeral, family life, mersault, beach

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