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Emotional detachment is positive when it is done intentionally for the sake of achieving happiness. Meursault, the protagonist in Albert Camus’ The Stranger, is fully aware that his emotional detachment brings him happiness and peace of mind, that is why it is considered a positive type of detachment, but he loses that peace of mind the day this detachment turns into emotional involvement. He holds the belief that emotions are no source of pleasure, but rather a source of trouble. He also regards all emotional expressions as absurd and meaningless. He chooses to be emotionally detached of his own free will, but he is unconsciously enforced to get emotionally involved with people. His emotional aloofness has made him tend to satisfy his physical needs. Thus, he sharpens his physical senses through focusing on their satisfaction. The article discusses how Meursault deliberately detaches himself emotionally from people to gain happiness, but this happiness turns into utter misery when, unaware, he is drawn into emotional involvement with others.

Sam Shuster Department of Dermatology, University of Newcastle, Newcastle upon Tyne, UKAbstract: The continued discussion about the meaning of Camus’s famous novel, L’étranger, provoked a re-reading, and this, in turn, led to its clinical analysis and further investigation. The book rests entirely on the thoughts, words and actions of its central character, Meursault, and these were found to show impairment of social relationships, communication and interaction, with other traits diagnostic of the Asperger’s subgroup of the autism spectrum disorder. It was then found that Camus had based Meursault on his close friend Galindo, and a search was therefore made for evidence of Galindo’s character; this revealed him to be an intelligent but odd person, who exhibited the characteristic impairment of social and personal behavior of Asperger’s syndrome. Thus, Camus had recognized and understood his friend’s strange behavior before Asperger’s syndrome had been defined; his use of it for the creation of Meursault is therefore the first published account of a man with this disorder. Many of the interpretations and ideas developed from Meursault’s words, thoughts and actions must now be reconsidered, as they are a misreading of the words and behavior of a man with Asperger’s syndrome. The outcome of this clinical examination of L’étranger is unique; it shows that a precise account of a person with a neurobehavioral disorder was made by a novelist before the disorder had been clinically defined.Keywords: Asperger’s syndrome, Camus, Meursault, L’étranger

Emotional detachment is positive when it is done intentionally for the sake of achieving happiness. Meursault, the protagonist in Albert Camus' The Stranger, is fully aware that his emotional detachment brings him happiness and peace of mind, that is why it is considered a positive type of detachment, but he loses that peace of mind the day this detachment turns into emotional involvement. He holds the belief that emotions are no source of pleasure, but rather a source of trouble. He also regards all emotional expressions as absurd and meaningless. He chooses to be emotionally detached of his own free will, but he is unconsciously enforced to get emotionally involved with people. His emotional aloofness has made him tend to satisfy his physical needs. Thus, he sharpens his physical senses through focusing on their satisfaction. The article discusses how Meursault deliberately detaches himself emotionally from people to gain happiness, but this happiness turns into utter misery when, unaware, he is drawn into emotional involvement with others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kamel Daoud's The Meursault Investigation (2015) is a recent addition to the category of postcolonial rewriting, a field enriched with seminal texts like Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea and J. M. Coetzee's Foe. Ostensibly a counter-text to Albert Camus's classic novel The Stranger (1942), Daoud's debut novel is an equallyfierce indictment of post-Independence Algerian society, particularly the Islamist sweep over Algeria and its authoritarian interpretation of religion. Narrated from the perspective of Harun, the brother of the nameless Arab Meursault kills in Camus 's novel, The Meursault Investigation is for the major part an attempt at the restitution of the dignity, honour and identity of the colonized Algerian subject. However, being a staunch individualist, Daoud does not mouth the patriotic rhetoric of most fellow Algerians, nor does he capitulate to the diktats of the religious fanatics, thus inviting criticism from both the nationalists and the Muslim conservatives. The paper examines this ambivalent self-positioning of Daoud's novel between Camus and Algeria, imperialism and Islamism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Yusuf Atılgan’s novel called Aylak Adam deeply influenced many young Turkish intellectuals at the time it was published. The researchers generally focused on the main character of the novel as the determinative factor of the mentioned influence and they tried to identify him with such concepts as loiterer (flaneur) and Frankish (alafranga). In this article, the accuracy of epithets attributed to C. of Aylak Adam will be questioned and it will be claimed that both epithets are far from presenting the real quality of C. In order to reveal the original character of C., this article will make a comparison between C. and Meursault, who is the main character of Albert Camus’ L’Étranger and it will be argued that C. is an absurd character. Secondly, it will be shown that Istanbul where C. lives in is a metropolis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Meursault não acredita em Deus. O posicionamento do protagonista do romance L’Étranger (1942), O Estrangeiro em português (2011), obra do francês nascido na Argélia Albert Camus, a respeito da deidade judaico-cristã causa indignação às personagens da narrativa e provoca um estranhamento relevante para uma reflexão sobre o (não) sentido da existência humana nos seus leitores. O presente artigo propõe um estudo da obra a partir das noções de engagement literário com base nas discussões de Jean-Paul Sartre e Theodor Adorno, bem como evidencia uma leitura na perspectiva da Dialética Negativa adorniana. Apresenta, ainda, uma análise crítica de Meursault fundamentada nos elementos formais do romance moderno, que oportunizam um diálogo desestabilizador entre a visão do narrador-personagem e as reflexões filosóficas sobre os dogmas existenciais com ênfase no texto O Anticristo, de Friedrich Nietzsche.

Il va sans dire que tout lecteur averti connaît l'anti-héros, Meursault, de L'Étranger de Camus, qui a été condamné à mort, non pas d'avoir tué un Arabe mais de ne pas connaitre les règles de la société. Or, personne n'aurait prétendu que quelque soixante-onze ans après, un écrivain algérien, Kamel Daoud, écrirait la suite de ce fameux roman qui a pour titre Meursault, contre-enquête où le narrateur, Haroun, le frère de « l'Arabe », tué par un « certain Meursault », donne d'abord à cet Arabe un nom, Moussa, qui lui manque et qui le fait ressortir de l'anonymat. Daoud lui crée aussi une histoire et mène, cette fois, l'enquête du côté de la victime pour compléter l'oeuvre de Camus qui, selon lui, était incomplète. Contrairement à Meursault, Haroun, conscient de l'influence des mamans sur les enfants, ne néglige pas de parler de sa M'ma ainsi que de celle de Meursault. Il est à rappeler que l'histoire de l'un commençait par « Aujourd'hui, maman est morte... » alors que celle de l'autre débute par « Aujourd'hui, maman est encore vivante... » et se termine de la même manière, ce qui laisse entendre que, bien que ce soit son fils cadet, Haroun, qui tue un Français, c'est bien sa M'ma si imposante qui venge son fils, « l'Arabe ». [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

À l'occasion du colloque « La francophonie dans tous ses états! », nous proposons une brève étude comparative du premier roman de Kamel Daoud, Meursault, contre-enquête (2013) et de L'Étranger (1942) d'Albert Camus. Comprenant une certaine contestation sociale, politique et morale, le roman de Daoud rend un hommage ambigu à l'auteur français: Camus y est confondu avec Meursault, de même qu'il y est considéré comme responsable des prétendues méprises de l'intrigue, ponctuellement démenties. Calqué sur L'Étranger afin d'y ajouter le volet « manquant » sur l'identité et l'histoire familiale de l'« Arabe » tué, le roman Meursault, contre-enquête s'éloigne pourtant de son modèle au travers d'une vengeance encore plus criminelle que le meurtre initial, à savoir, l'assassinat d'une victime expiatoire, un Français en fuite le jour de l'Indépendance de l'Algérie. Donc, même si le narrateur de Daoud - Haroun, le frère de l'« Arabe » - se rapproche de l'univers camusien par son athéisme, ou par le sentiment de l'absurde, la loi du talion démontre le fossé qui le sépare de Meursault et de la philosophie de L'Étranger. Sans mettre en cause, évidemment, le bien-fondé des sentiments anticolonialistes du roman de Daoud, son indignation légitime, nous examinons et souvent réfutons ses griefs contre L'Étranger, qui mythifie en creux la cause des indigènes musulmans - ce qui est rarement compris par le lecteur camusien. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The infamous story of a young office clerk called Meursault has long entertained literary critics, scholars, musicians, artists and school teachers for the light and shadow that it reveals around and on the human condition. His character has been lauded as existential hero and rebuked as lacking agency. In this article, his story, in Camus’ The outsider, is explored as an educational challenge to a society to reflect on the territory it occupies, and the ways in which the sociopolitical machinery deals with perceived anomalies (like the character Meursault). The article explores notions of normalcy and ordinariness in relation to Meursault’s thinking and experience in order to consider the idea of what lies outside, or beyond, thinking about education. The argument here is that Meursault’s failure to intervene in his own life challenges both the ways in which we are ordinarily educated and the ways in which we ordinarily resist our education. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Although a relatively minor character in Camus's novel L'étranger, Marie Cardona, the protagonist Meursault's lover, was the author's favorite creation. She represents love of life and unabashed sexuality in the novel to a greater degree than any other character. Recently, feminist scholars have viewed her from complex, sometimes contradictory perspectives. They are unable to decide whether Camus designed her as an autonomous figure or a mere cardboard sexual plaything for the neurotic Meursault. Some critics link Camus's alleged anti-Arab racism to his supposed depiction of Marie as a helpless, passionless woman lacking an independent identity. This article depicts Marie as a 'natural woman,' who ultimately appreciates Meursault's blunt honesty, even when he says he does not love her. Contrary to most critics, Marie demonstrates an active sexuality rather than serving as Meursault's sexual object. Indeed, the converse may be closer to the truth. After their initial encounter at the swimming pool, Meursault is often shy and passive and has to be coaxed into sexual behavior by the more aggressive Marie. After his mother's death, Meursault seeks a close personal relationship with a woman, and hopes to find it with Marie. He rejects his brutish friend Raymond's suggestion that they go to a brothel because he wants a more meaningful relationship. An essentially passive individual, Meursault requires the stimulation of a lustful, affectionate, life-affirming young woman like Marie to awaken his sexuality. That Camus, an admirer of ancient Greco-Roman myth, may have intended Marie to represent a Greek fertility goddess figure is suggested when she smites the asphodel flowers with her handbag on the way down to the beach where Meursault kills the Arab. The asphodel was the flower sacred to Persephone/Proserpine, wife of Hades/Pluto. Ironically, she was goddess of the Underworld and the dead and also daughter of Demeter/Ceres, goddess of fertility and the harvest. Since previous critics have linked the descent of Meursault and Marie to the beach from the bus-stop to Dante's descent from the 'asphodel plateau' into Hell in the Divina commedia, this is a plausible interpretation of Marie's subliminal identity. Marie embraces the sun and the sea and merges with them in a successfully consummated relationship. Unlike Meursault, for whom she may resemble his mother in her youth, she is at peace with herself and the world. For Camus, her dark, tanned skin symbolizes her identification with Nature and the body and rejection of thoughts of death. In her love of life and her play with the asphodels on the deathly plateau leading to the fatal beach, Marie reveals an essential innocence and ambivalence as a Persephone-like, life/death Nature symbol, and a female, life-assertive Antichrist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes similarities between playwright William Shakespeare's play "King Lear" and author Albert Camus' novel "The Stranger." Particular attention is given to a comparison of the characters Cordelia from "King Lear" and Meursault from "The Stranger." Cordelia's relationship with her father, King Lear, is compared to Meursault's relationship with his mother. Other topics covered include social expectations, patriarchy, and Shakespeare's influence on Camus' early work.

In discussing the historical accuracy and verisimilitude of Camus's L'étranger, critics disagree whether the death sentence the court imposes on Meursault for killing an Arab realistically depicts the French-Algerian legal process. Most studies, such as Conor Cruise O'Brien's brief classic, and works by English Showalter and Patrick McCarthy, consider this aspect of the roman the most unrealistic and ahistorical, since racial discrimination against Arabs in the Francophone world was such that no white colon would be convicted for shooting an Arab armed with a knife, and counsel's demands for a 'not guilty' verdict based on self-defense would have convinced a jury. Critics have not sufficiently addressed whether the novel itself indicates that Meursault/Camus regarded the death sentence for killing an Arab as uncommon or not in accord with verisimilitude. That Meursault shows no remorse for killing an Arab in cold blood suggests he shares the racial prejudices of his people. Moreover, in the course of his arrest and trial the legal authorities initially pay little attention to his case. Apparently believing that he will be released, perhaps even without trial, he thinks he does not need a lawyer. After he is imprisoned, his conduct toward the Arab prisoners, the legal authorities, his defense attorney, and his paramour, Marie, indicate that he expects to be found 'not guilty.' Even the Arabs in jail with him find the presence of a white pied-noir in prison anomalous. In these ways, Camus subtly suggests cognizance of the racist historical context in which L'étranger takes place. Indeed, the judicial system turns on Meursault only after he admits to the examining magistrate that he is an atheist and the authorities learn that he had not wept at his mother's funeral and was in other ways seemingly indifferent to her death. Thus, Camus attempts to preserve some semblance of historical authenticity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]