Monday, September 3, 2012

Versions

When finishing The Stranger, I noticed that many of the descriptions of thoughts and events  are left at a very simple and shallow level. They lacked depth and it was difficult to deduce  and get explanations as to why some things occurred. Camus leaves some events and people in his book as an enigma , so that the reader can either imagine his own version of it or leave it as it is. 

I saw this style of writing when the author describes the mourning of Mersault's mother in page 7. Camus describes, from Mersault's point of view, the old people from the home that came to mourn Madame Mersault. Camus only shows the reader the physical part of the people accompanying Mersault through the night. He only tells about the woman who is crying over the main character's mom and her relationship with her, the rest of the mourners are left obliviated by their lack of contact with Mersault. The vigil is characterized by silence; other authors would maybe make their character talk with some of his mother's friends, but as an existentialist, Camus decided to let his character just go through the night without saying and with almost no retrospective about his mother's life.

This is the lack of information I consider as the most important of the whole book. The things Mersault is not saying about his mother could quite possibly be the more interesting part of the novel and could give important insight about the main character. But Camus decided to not reveal Mersault thought and feelings toward Madame and leave us with the question, making us as readers develop our own thesis as to why he doesn't say anything.  



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