The Insignificance of Women in Camus’ The Stranger Essay

In The Stranger, Camus portrays women as unnecessary beings created purely to serve materialistically and satisfy males through the lack of a deep, meaningful, relationship between Meursault and females. Throughout the text, the main character, Meursault, creates closer, more meaningful relationships with other minor characters in the story. However, in his interactions with females in this book, Meursault’s thoughts and actions center on himself and his physical desires, observations, and feelings, rather than devoting his attention to the actual female. Living in Algiers in the 1960s, Meursault originates from a post-modernist time of the decline in emotion. Meursault simply defies the social expectations and societal ‘rules’, as†¦show more content†¦This shows just how little he cared for such matters, writing off the topic of marriage so trivially. Meursault continues on to say to the reader that â€Å"she was the one who was doing the asking and all I was saying was yes.† (Camus 41-42). He justifies his lack of excitement or romance by stating that only Marie asked about, implying that he did not care for having a tight, emotional relationship with his lover, Marie. Marie plays the source of the love between them, while Meursault simply listens and enjoys in the pleasure of having her, but still feeling indifferent to her actual emotions. This downplay on their relationship and her feelings demonstrate that Meursault does not value anything of Marie below surface level and that he lacks the need for a warmer connection between them. Meursault does, however, still crave women as a whole in the same way which he craves, yet disregards, Marie. â€Å"I never thought specifically of Marie. But I thought so much about a woman, about women, about all the ones I had known, about all the circumstances in which I had enjoyed them...†(Camus 77). Meursault’s thoughts wander while he is in his jail cell, but never specifically dwell upon his relationships. In utilizing the word â€Å"I† Meursault links each of his these thoughts to him, solely pointing out each of these â€Å"circumstances† as they affected him, rather than anyShow MoreRelatedThe Insignificance of Women in Camus’ The Stranger Essay example914 Words   |  4 PagesIn The Stranger, Camus portrays women as unnecessary beings created purely to serve materialistically and satisfy males through the lack of a deep, meaningful, relationship between Meursault and females. Throughout the text, the main character, Meursault, creates closer, more meaningful relationships with other minor characters in the story. However, in his interactions with females in this book, Meursault’s thoughts and actions center on himself and his physical desires, observations, and feelingsRead MoreParental Influence on Clashes with Society in Love in the Time of Cholera and The Stranger1620 Words   |  7 Pages Latin author, Gabriel Garcà ­a Mà ¡rquez and Algerian writer Albert Camus, introduce how their characters conflict with socialization as a result of their cultivation in Love in the Time of Cholera and The Stranger respectively. In Mà ¡rquez’s novel, the key female role is assigned to Fermina Daza, a middle class Latina in the 1800s-1900s, expected to hold prestige and marry wealthy by her father and societal pressures. In The Stranger, Meursault, the protagonist, develops a niche for logic rather thanRead MoreThe Stranger By Albert Camus1476 Words   |  6 Pages In the novel The Stranger by Albert Camus, the main character Meursault kills an Arab man after the man attacks his friend and ends up in prison, condemned to death after the jury finds him guilty almost solely based on the fact that he was insensitive at his mother’s funeral. While in prison, Meursault has several epiphanies, that is, he has several moments when he feels a sudden sense of understanding about important aspects of his life that help him make peace with the fact that he will die soon