Stranger #3

Camus intentionally divided The Stranger into two parts:

In the first section of The Stranger, Albert Camus presents Mersault's view on people. By giving a short and plain description to the people he encounters, an indifferent atmosphere is created. Mersault encounters the caretaker at the home at Marengo. "He was sixty-four and came from Paris" (Camus 7). In general, Mersault has short and to the point thoughts and perceptions in the first half of the novel. One might deduce that Mersault is a person that cares about himself over others. This deduction might be disproven in the second half of the book. After he arrives in prison, Mersault describes people and his thoughts in a more elaborate detail. Mersault goes in depth when illustrating his view on his lawyer. "The next day a lawyer came to see me at the prison. He was short and chubby, quite young, his hair carefully slicked back. Despite the heat (I was in my shirt sleeves), he had on a dark suit, a wing collar, and an odd-looking tie with broad black and white stripes" (Camus 64). I think that Camus' intentions here to change Mersault's thought pattern was to change the reader's view of Mersault. I feel more sympathy towards him as a whole in the second part of the book. This may be important, because there is less sympathy for him in general as the jury eventually finds him guilty.