The Stranger (first body)

Meursault's opening lines of the novel instantly expose his psychological indifference to the world around him.  Instead of grieving, he is emotionally removed, cold, and apathetic in regards to the news of his mother's death. Once he receives the telegram, his fundamental concern is finding out which day his mother passed away: "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," (1). He does not express any anguish or sorrow, which makes him a  difficult character to classify. Moreover, he is neither happy nor unhappy; thus, it is challenging to cast him as being immoral or normal: he is simply amoral.  Meursault utterly declares the fact in a straightforward and ordinary manner. Already his opening lines connote one of the many themes in the novel: the meaninglessness of human existence. In addition, although Meursault dismisses the interpersonal, emotional, and collective matters of situations, he shifts his attention to the physical and practical details revolving around his mother's death. He finds particular interest in the heat, sky, and nature: "the sky was already filled with light. The sun was beginning to bear down on the earth and it was getting hotter by the minute...I was hot in my dark clothes...it was inhuman and oppressive," (24). Before his mother's funeral, he savors and appreciates the lovely climate and scenery. Likewise, Meursault does not feel pain nor sadness throughout the entire funeral process; however, he does find the heat unbearable, causing him more grief than the idea of burying his own mother into the ground. 

The Stranger (intro paragraph)

Albert Camus' novel, The Stranger, not only explores the meaninglessness of human life, but also the intense infatuation with the external world versus the internal world. The detached protagonist, Meursault, immediately reveals himself as a lost, emotionless individual in the beginning of the novel. Throughout The Stranger, Meursault constantly diverts his attention to his inner core, his intimate, yet solely physical relationship with Marie, his external life, and the extraneous components of his surroundings. While Meursault introduces the novel with an aloof reaction to his mother's death, his depravation in the prison cell at the beginning of part 2 causes him to focus on the internal as opposed to the external, unusually disclosing emotional information about Marie and shockingly, his mother.