Jennifer Hickerson

Period 2

The Stranger Synthesis Essay

In the stranger Albert Camus shows how a person can dramatically change from being a one to

not show any feeling about anything, to a person that has so many feelings toward everything to the

point where eventually they talk to themselves about situations and not even realize it. Camus

introduced Monsieur, he was the man that could literally shoot a man because the “sun” was to hot,

and stand there feeling as though he did not do anything wrong.

Monsieur was so insensitive to the point he could say “Mama 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…” the author Albert Camus suggest that

Monsieur feels indifferent about his mother’s death. He doesn’t even really know when she died nor

does it really matter to him because it has already came to pass. Albert Camus establishes his point of

the passage with the way he uses the grammar in the telegram Monsieur received from the home. It

portrays the tone he is reading it. He also establishes his point through Monsieur’s reaction to his

mother’s death. The meaning is communicated also through the way the telegram is written. The

telegram is written two words at a time in each sentence to express how solemn the tone is but

Monsieur’s reaction is opposite. His reaction being opposite from the tone that Camus is trying to

establish is evidence that he is feeling indifferent about his mothers death. The purpose of the telegram

is to show the way the tone ought to be and the way the tone ends up because of the way Monsieur

reacts to it. His words change the tone because his words are insensitive.

When Monsieur explains how he “asked [his] boss for the next two days off and there was no

way he was going to refuse [him] with an excuse like that” referring to his mother’s death it shows that

his mothers death was more like any other reason to just missed a couple days of work. Also referring
to a death as an excuse, the way Monsieur did in this passage seemed insensitive and made it seem like

it was not a big deal and he just wanted to take a couple days off of work. He does not really know

how to show emotion.

Camus shows a shift in the passage when Monsieur expresses that “it’s almost as Maman

weren’t dead. [But] after the funeral, the case will be closed, and everything will have a more official

feel to it.” The shift that is made shows some of Monsieur’s emotion but at the same time the emotion

is not what would be expected of someone loosing there mother. When someone looses there mother

it’s expected to hit them like a “ton of bricks” but in his case it’s more of an unreal feeling and he’s not

showing hurt feelings over it. The shift that is shown in this piece of the passage is that he is actually

expressing a feeling when normally doesn’t show any emotion.

Camus shows a transition in Monsieur from a man that has a careless to a man that care so

much that he eventually is pretty much crazy in the passage, “That day, after the guard had left. I

looked at myself in a tin plate. My reflection seemed to remain serious even though I was trying to

smile at it. I moved the plate around in front of me. I smiled and it still had the same sad, stern

expression.” the author Albert Camus showed that over time isolation could change a persons whole

personality. In the beginning of the book Monsieur did not show any expression, not even to his

mother’s death and it didn’t really matter to him. But now after being lock up for a while, he has

realized that he is not showing emotion even when he wants to and it really concerns him. Monsieur is

diving himself crazy because now rather than bushing everything off and taking this for granted he is

paying to much attention to everything.

Camus goes further to show how his emotions have change when he writes, “It was near the

end of the day, the time of day I don’t like talking about, that nameless hour when sounds of the

evening would rise up from every floor of the prison in a cortege of silence.” This is direct evidence

that Monsieur has a lot of feelings about being in prison and his is one of the times in this book the

reader could actually feel sorry for him and not so much annoyed. Monsieur obviously has a fear of
night in the prison, not so much because of it being prison and all the crazy things that happen in

prison but more because of the “silence”. He also expressed his guilt in this passage when he says “the

time of day I don’t like talking about” Monsieur does not like to talk about it because it brings

disappointment to him because he knows that its all his fault the reason for being in prison in the first

place and the silence is the time he gets to dwell on his mistakes.

Monsieur mentions that while he was looking in his “reflection”, “[he] distinctly heard the

sound of [his] own voice [and he] recognized it as the same one that had been ringing in [his] ears for

many long day…”. He eventually realized he had been talking to himself which also shows that he had

been thinking more deeply into his life rather than paying small amounts of attention to the surface of

what was taking place in his life. This passage also shows that he is feeling extremely lonely because

he does not have any one else to really talk to. Monsieur expresses a shocked feeling when he

mentions this because it took him a while to even realize that it was his voice that had been “ringing”

in his ear.

Finally in the ending of this passage Monsieur brought up a man at his maman’s funeral that

was talking about “nights in prison”. This was important because it shows that he was also thinking

about his mother as well other things that he should have felt bad about.

Monsieur does not have a common ground with his feelings. Its either he cares too much or not

enough.