In Albert Camus' The Stranger, the main character, Mersault, is confronted with the absurdity of life after killing a man on a beach in Algiers. Mersault spends his days absorbed in living in the moment, giving little importance to the past or the future, until the day his world is destroyed by this inexplicable act of violence. Despite continually stating that one path is the same as another and that nothing in life truly matters, Mersault often reveals contrary thoughts and actions; indeed, even his decision to commit murder can be seen as an intentional attempt to rock his world. For most of the novel, in fact, it is unclear whether the main character candidly lives according to his proclaimed beliefs or is simply convincing himself of them in a failed attempt to avoid the weight of emotions. When the protagonist's post-crime trial finally throws Mersault face to face with his beliefs, he is forced to reexamine his values. As Mersault comes to a gradual acceptance of the harsh realities of life, the reader is also forced to carefully examine the passions that govern his own existence. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The first oddity a reader might notice in The Fall is the lack of dialogue. Instead of allowing in-depth insight into the main character's conversations, the audience is granted an almost godlike view of the minute details of Mersault's life. Only on the first page of the novel, for example, does Mersault inform us that the day is hot; who dined at Celeste's, as usual; who will take the two o'clock bus to Marengo to return in the afternoon, and so on. Perhaps the reader is given such in-depth access to Mersault's daily activities because the present is all the main character wants to worry about. This fact is made blatantly evident in the first two lines of the novel: “Mom died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don't know" (3). When asked by his boss, Mersault is also forced to reveal that he is unsure of his mother's age. Only someone who places little or no importance on the sequence of events could be so casual about the age or date of death of a family member. Subsequently, Mersault refuses a job offer in Paris because “people never change their lives, that one life is as good as another anyway” (41). The past, therefore, simply does not matter, while decisions made in the present do not affect the future: this, at least, is what Mersault would like the reader to believe. decisions appear to be based simply on the path of least resistance. When Mersault's friend Raymond asks for help writing a threatening letter to an ex-girlfriend, Mersault states that his agreement to help Raymond is not because he cares about his friend, but rather because he "doesn't had any reason not to please him” (32). This same mentality pushes the protagonist to agree to testify that Raymond's girlfriend has been unfaithful to him, despite knowing full well that there is no concrete evidence to support his friend's statements later still, when Mersault's girlfriend asks him if he wants to marry her, he simply accepts because "it didn't really matter" (41). Alternatively, it is possible to see Mersault's previous refusal to move to Paris as opposition to change; and if, as he claims, one life is as good as another, why not go to Paris? After rejecting his boss's proposal, the main character is accused of completely lacking ambition,presumably essential characteristic for business. Mersault regrets having upset his boss, but still stands by his decision. In this case, therefore, it seems that refusal was not the easiest path. Furthermore, Mersault ultimately reveals that when he had agreed to marry his girlfriend, he had not grasped the meaning behind his words; only when he sees his friend Masson's wife does he understand how his actions will change his life. Furthermore, while Mersault's decisions regarding his friend Raymond's situation certainly appear to be based on a genuine lack of care, other incidents show evidence to the contrary. . For example, one night Mersault hears his neighbor, Salamano, sobbing pitifully because his longtime canine companion is missing. This leads the protagonist to not only think about his recently deceased mother, but also to experience a lack of appetite for the first time since her funeral. The main character's lack of understanding of his own habits emerges when he is joined by a strange woman during lunch at his favorite restaurant, Celeste's. Mersault freely expresses his fascination with the woman's frenetic pace and determined attitude. In fact, he is so absorbed in her robot behavior that he decides to follow her for a short period. Oddly enough, Mersault himself shows signs of the same need for constant activity. “I remembered that it was Sunday,” Mersault laments early in the novel, “and that bothered me: I don't like Sundays” (21). Although he never explicitly states his reasons, Sunday is the only day of the week where Mersault remains without structure. The day is spent observing the activity on the street below and reflecting on the fact that his apartment has outgrown it since his mother left. Much later, when Mersault is imprisoned, the passage of time becomes a constant torment. It is because of these long and empty hours of the present that the protagonist finds himself having to dedicate his thoughts to the past and the future. It seems possible, then, that Mersault's earlier aversion to idleness was the result of his escape from self-reflection. Regardless of Mersault's sincere motivations, it is his dogged focus on the present that seems to fuel his apparent disconnection with the world around him. At his mother's funeral, Mersault watches his mother's friends enter the room and laments that “I saw them more clearly than I had ever seen anyone else, and I did not miss a single detail of their faces or their clothes. But I didn't feel them and I found it difficult to believe that they really existed” (9). In a later chapter, when Mersault's friend Raymond advises the protagonist to keep his head high, Mersault takes a moment to realize that his friend is trying to comfort him over his mother's death; although only two days have passed since the funeral, Mersault hasn't thought about her in the slightest. In the first chapter of the novel, in fact, the protagonist instead focuses her attention on the fact that the day is very hot; so hot that Mersault falls asleep on the bus to Marengo. A short time later he notices that he refuses the janitor's offer of food because he is not hungry, but he accepts a coffee with milk and also smokes a cigarette. Drinking coffee and smoking was such a relaxing experience that the main character fell asleep again. While Mersault visits his neighbor, Raymond, later, the main character delights in drinking wine and smoking. This focus on physical sensation continues throughout the novel, quickly creating the impression that physical needs, for Mersault, are given a higher priority than emotional needs. It becomes clear a short time later that theprotagonist is not only focused on the physical; at certain times, especially during times of stress, he becomes a slave to it. First highlighted during his journey to his mother's grave, when the main character states that "the glare from the sky was unbearable" (16) and that "all this: the sun, the smell of leather and horse of the hearse, the smell of paint and incense, and my tiredness after a night without sleep, made it difficult for me to see or think clearly” (17), the same pattern is highlighted again on the crucial day that irrevocably alters the life of Mersault. When Mersault agrees to go to the beach at Raymond's invitation, he unknowingly sets in motion the events that will lead to the reversal of his worldview. While at the beach, Mersault and Raymond meet the relatives of Raymond's ex-girlfriend Raymond, the same ex-girlfriend to whom Mersault agreed to write an abusive letter, which resulted in the girl's visit and subsequent beating at the hands of Raymond. The relatives, of course, took offense at her abuse and have persecuted her ever since Raymond. The reader learns that the Arabs follow the group even to the beach, and when Mersault's faction first confronts them at this location, Raymond ends up being cut with a knife. The group returns to their cabin, but Mersault decides to take a walk alone to the beach. Up to this point in the novel, Mersault has carefully tailored a specific impression of his character. He portrays himself as a man who lives in the moment; one who derives pleasure from the basic bodily functions of food, drink, sleep, and sex. It makes decisions based on the path of least resistance, without thinking about the past or future. But is this image also reality, or simply what Mersault would have us believe? This question, in turn, can be answered with a final question: When Mersault kills the Arab, is he simply following his normal pattern of being governed by the physicist? Or are his reasons deeper? On the morning of the shooting, the protagonist struggles to wake up. Immediately after arriving outside, Mersault complains that “the day, already bright with sunshine, hit me like a slap in the face” (47). The reader knows by now that this heralds a tragic turn of events, and it almost seems as if the protagonist is aware of it too, as Mersault confesses that “it occurred to me that all I had to do was turn around and that would be the end. But the whole beach, throbbing in the sun, pressed on my back” (58). In illustrating the circumstances, Mersault states that, following the onslaught of a fiery luminosity in his environment, “his whole being tensed and I tightened my hand around the gun. The trigger gave” (59). In this sense, the reader is led to believe that Mersault's decision to shoot is based on physical appearance. The shot wasn't so much an intentional firing of the weapon, but more of a visceral reaction to physical stimuli: His eye is suddenly pierced by light, he flinches, and his finger pulls the trigger. On the other hand, Mersault develops an acute awareness of time for perhaps the first time in the novel: “It was the same sun, the same light still shining on the same sand as before. For two hours the day had stood still; for two hours he was anchored in a sea of ​​molten lead” (58). Furthermore, just before the moment that alters his world, Mersault reacts in ways that are not purely physical. Despite knowing that moving forward towards the Arabic will do nothing to pull him out of "the plates of sunlight that break upon my brow" (59), Mersault still chooses to take a step forward, and it is this monumental step that causes the Arab to approach the knife whose glowoverwhelms Mersault's vision. The most essential lines, however, come right after Mersault pulls the trigger for the first time; particular emphasis should be placed on the opening sentence: “I shook off the sweat and the sun. I knew I had shattered the harmony of the day, the exceptional silence of a beach where I had been happy. Then I shot four more times on the motionless body where the bullets had lodged without leaving a trace” (59). In the end, Mersault frees himself from physical affections; it is only after shaking off the sweat and sun that he chooses to shoot four more times. This represents the first time Mersault intentionally reverses material influence. Furthermore, in recognizing that the bullets left no mark on the body but destroyed the peace of the day, the audience sees a complete reversal of Mersault's previous views: a choice that has no physical effect, but one that has an emotional impact. in the second part of the novel, which begins with Mersault already arrested for killing the Arab, Mersault seems to have recovered his supposed equanimity. When questioned by his lawyer, Mersault answers honestly that his mother's death did little to dampen his happiness. The lawyer leaves in frustration, and the main character shows his newfound loss of sense of the future when he states that "I wanted things between us to be good, not because he would defend me better but, if I may put it that way in short, good in a way natural… But in reality it didn't make much sense and I gave up out of laziness” (66). follow his reasoning, first because I was hot and there were big flies in his office that kept getting in my face” (68). resistance when he agrees with the magistrate only because "every time I want to get rid of someone I'm not really listening to, I made it seem like I agreed" (69). Mersault's renewed detachment from the world around him is evident when he has to remember killing a man. Little by little, however, the protagonist takes note of the change. After being in prison for a few months and being forced to find ways to occupy his time, he finds a solution: "Eventually, once I learned to remember things, I wasn't bored anymore... I realized then that a man who had lived a single day could easily have lived a hundred years in prison" (78). Finally the past has acquired meaning; the future gets its due recognition when Mersault admits that "Only the words 'yesterday' and 'tomorrow' had still a meaning to me” (80). He regrets not having bothered to read more execution stories: if even one had told of an escape from the inevitable, perhaps he would have gained some hope for the future main character lacked the ability to examine his own actions—he admits in his first meeting with his lawyer that "he had practically lost the habit of analyzing himself" (65) - Mersault regains this ability when he notices a particular journalist present at his trial: " All I could see in his slightly lopsided face were his two very bright eyes, examining me closely without betraying any definable emotion. And I had the strange impression of being observed alone” (85). Mersault also confesses to worrying about the impression he makes on others when he admits that "for the first time in years I had this stupid urge to cry, because I could feel how much all these people hated me" (90). The.