Stranger Theme Card

Themes:

-Death, though always imminent, should not be feared.

-What ties a man to the earth is not his consciousness of physical stimuli, but the emotion that stimuli creates, whether in the man himself or to those who suround him.



Subjects:

-Alienation

-Indifference

-Judgement

-Death



Vehicles:

-Irony

-Imagery

-Symbolism

-Allusion



Conflicts:

-Meursault vs. Arab

-Meursault vs. Chaplain

-Meursault vs. Jury



Quotes:

-"Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don't know. I got a telegram from the home: 'Mother deceased. Funeral tomorrow. Faithfully yours.' That doesn't mean anything Maybe it was yesterday."
-"All I could feel were the cymbals of sunlight crashing on my forehead and, indistinctly, the dazzling spear flying up from the knife in front of me."
-"Nothing, nothing mattered, and I knew why. So did he. Throughout the whole absurd llife I'd lived, a dark wind had been rising toward me from somewhere deep in my future, across years that were still to come, and as it passed, this wind leveled everything that was offered to me at the time, in years no more real than the ones I was living."
-"With every blade of light that flashed off the sand, from a bleached shell or a piece of brken glass, my jaws tightened."
-"It was very hot. I ate at the restaurant, at Celeste's, as usual."

Main Characters:
Meursault
the Arab
Celeste
Salamano
Raymond
Marie
the Prosecutor

Title Significance:
The significance of the title, The Stranger, is that throughout the novel, Meursault is alienated and does not understand life. He constantly feels like a stranger in the world whom no one understands.

Summary:
Albert Camus's, The Stranger, begins with Meursault, the main character, explaining that his mother died the day before. Meursault apporaches his mother's death with a very nonchalant attitude,which seems terrible at first. Meursault begins to build freiendships with Marie, Salamano, and Raymond, the entire time not really understanding the point behind relationships or friendships or love. Meursault and Marie agree to accompany Raymond to the beach house of one of his friends. While at the beach, Meursault confronts and kills an Arabs, who was after Raymond. Meursault is sentenced to prison, where he ponders many new ideas about his life and his approaching death.