In Part One of The Stranger, Meursault’s personality is demonstrated by his nonchalance to most events and (possibly) inability to piece events together. During class one day, Mr. Mitchell was describing Meursault’s impressions as a character and how he gives a “snapchat” of events. Everything is described in the present and his as soon as it happens, it is forgotten and irrelevant to what happens next. Meursault’s behavior in the first part parallels the “Snapchat” app, where picture messages are temporarily available and then disappear.
An incident that reveals Meursault’s characteristic of living in the moment is evident by his surprise of a four-day weekend. When he takes two days off to attend Maman’s funeral, he counts for it as two days of refraining from work. The idea that he was taking work off on Thursday and Friday to mourn his mother’s death isn’t transferred in his head as a four-day break. In fact, at the end of chapter 1 after he arrives home from his trip, he says, “I knew I was going to go to bed and sleep for twelve hours.” Then chapter 2 starts off with,
“As I was waking up, it came to me why my boss had seemed annoyed when I asked him for two days off: today is Saturday. I’d sort of forgotten, but as I was getting up, it came to me. And, naturally, my boss thought about the fact that I’d be getting four days’ vacation that way, including Sunday, and he couldn’t have been happy about that” (19).
The lack of emotion Meursault experiences due to his mother’s death is quite surprising to me. It could be his indifference to the situation or that he doesn’t want to reveal his dreaded feelings toward his mother. In fact, his realization of skipping work for four days doesn’t become apparent until Saturday after he slept in from his return.
Also, Meursault does a good job of making excuses for himself when he doesn’t want to put the blame to himself. For example, he doesn’t tell his boss that he is skipping work for two days because he is mourning his mother’s death, but he almost passes it off as if his break wasn’t his fault, but his mother’s, because she is the one who died and caused all of the commotion for him. Overall, I find Meursault’s behavior in part one to be a little questionable based on his “snapchat” reactions to events that I would find to be heartbreaking.
Interesting idea. Not what I expected when I clicked on the title (some interpretive "snapchats" would be amusing!), but this is definitely a point I did not consider.
ReplyDeleteI really like the idea about the snapchats! It makes a lot of sense. It would be funny to see what Mersault would snapchat about if he had one... on the otherhand his snapchats might not be very interesting.
ReplyDeleteI'm happy to receive the credit for this analogy, but I have to be honest: I'm not even sure exactly what a "snapchat" is, although I have seen the term bandied about (it has to do with one of those complicated phones I don't have?). I'm pretty sure I was saying "snapshot" (and not enunciating clearly enough), which is probably an obsolete metaphor drawn from an earlier kind of photography: basically, a picture, a "slice of life" isolated from the blurry flow and frozen in a photograph, but more casual and seemingly arbitrary than a portrait, which reflects intentional composition.
ReplyDeleteBut I probably shouldn't admit this, and just front like I meant "snapchats" all along. But really, this idea is yours, Mariam. I just inadvertently inspired it with my mumbling!