DePrato 1

Joseph DePrato

Ryan Gallagher

English 12 Cp

6 December 2010

Literary Analysis Paper for Camus’ “The Stranger”

In Part 1 and Part 2 of Albert Camus’ “The Stranger”, Camus suggests that when something

changes in a person’s life, they tend to change too, although it might not be for the better most of the

time, especially whether it is an emotional, physical, or mental change. After the person changes, they

usually don’t like it right away, and try to make the best out of it, although it could lead them to make

poor decisions. In part 1 when Raymond beats his ex-wife, he had an emotional change, from loving to

hating her, and he makes the best out of it, by showing her how he had changed by beating her.

In the passage when Raymond beats his ex-wife, Albert Camus suggests that love can be an

emotion that can trigger other emotions to show in many different ways. Raymond had loved his ex-

wife, but when he learned that she had cheated on him, he showed a lot of anger, and had violent

impulses about her.

When the passage starts, it starts with "a woman's shrill voice and then saying 'you used me,

you used me. I'll teach you to use me'" (35) Camus uses tone to express how Raymond had loved his

ex-wife, and how he had anger in his voice because she had caused him a lot of hurt, and he felt that

beating her would be a way of hurting her back and teaching her a lesson, to not use someone who

loves you for you're own gain. "There were some thuds and the woman screamed." (35) Raymond at

this point in the passage had started to beat his ex, and she did not realize that he was going to that

extent, so in response she had started screaming.

Near the end of the passage Raymond still didn't stop when a policeman came to handle the

situation. Raymond's ex tried to blame him saying that "He's a pimp!" (36) She tried to tell the

policeman that Raymond was convicting a crime for being a pimp, because she knew that the only way
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to get rid of him was to get him arrested since she didn't want him anymore. Raymond responds to that

by saying "you just wait sweetheart- we're not through yet." (36) Raymond still wants to show his ex

that he's not done with teaching her a lesson, but he couldn't stop, because when someone starts

playing with another persons love, that love can trigger other emotions to show strong, and one of the

main emotions that are triggered is anger.

Raymond’s emotional change had caused him to get in trouble, and it also caused him to make

the wrong decisions, and take risks. After Raymond’s emotional change in part 1, Meursault had to go

through physical and mental changes in part 2, because when he is in prison, he had to change his from

being a free man, to being a trapped man.

In the passage in Albert Camus “The Stranger”, when Meursault is in prison, Camus suggests

that adapting to a new way of life can be difficult, and can take a while to get use to, by describing how

Meursault adapts to life in prison.

While in prison, Meursault had realized that he was not able to do things a free man can do, but

he could still use his imagination. He uses his imagination to cure his desire for women. “About all the

circumstances in which I had enjoyed them, that my cell would be filled with their faces and crowded

with my desires.”(77) While in prison Meursault was not able to have Marie visit him in his cell, and

his desire for her had grown so much. That he started to think about other women as well. To cure his

desires for women in jail, he adapted by using his imagination, juxtaposed to actually being with a

women (especially Marie).

Another thing that Meursault had to adapt to was his inability to smoke a cigarette. “I couldn’t

understand why they had taken them away when they didn’t hurt nobody.”(78) Meursault had been

smoking cigarettes since the beginning of the book. Now that he is in prison, he no longer has the

freedom to smoke them whenever he wanted one. He sucked “on chips of wood”(78) and was

nauseated all the time. He lost the cravings for cigarettes and adapted to live without them.
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Albert Camus suggested that adapting to a new way of life can be difficult and can take a while

to get used to. Meursault was a character that had to go from being a free man in which he could do

what he wanted, to being a trapped man with no freedom whatsoever.

Albert Camus suggested that when someone changes emotionally, physically, or mentally, it

usually affects the person in different ways. Raymond was changed emotionally because of his wife

cheating on him, and he changed from being a nice guy to a sick and angry person. And he made a

poor decision to beat his wife for cheating. Meursault had changed in order to survive in prison, and

how he did so had affected his usual everyday life, because he went from being a free man, to being a

trapped man with a free mans mind.