How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph). We used Matthew Ward's translation, published by Vintage International published in 1989.
Quote #1
For now, it’s almost as if Maman weren’t dead. After the funeral, though, the case will be closed, and everything will have a more official feel to it. (1.1.2)
Closure = certainty. Meursault suspends his emotional attachment until something is made "official," or at least certain.
Quote #2
[A] soldier […] smiled at me and asked if I’d been traveling long. I said, "Yes," just so I wouldn’t have to say anything else. (1.1.4)
When The Stranger begins, Meursault has no interest in other people whatsoever. This will gradually change as the novel progresses.
Quote #3
"I suppose you’d like to see your mother."
[…]
"We put the cover on, but I’m supposed to unscrew the casket so you can see her." He was moving toward the casket when I stopped him. He said, "You don’t want to?" I answered, "no." He was quiet, and I was embarrassed because I felt I shouldn’t have said that. (1.1.6-8)
Meursault recognizes that his detachment is unacceptable.
Quote #4
Then he offered to bring me a cup of coffee with milk. I like milk in my coffee, so I said yes, and he came back a few minutes later with a tray. I drank the coffee. Then I felt like having a smoke. But I hesitated, because I didn’t know if I could do it with Maman right there. I thought about it; it didn’t matter. I offered the caretaker a cigarette and we smoked. (1.1.13)
Although Meursault feels a twinge of self-consciousness here (he is unsure as to whether he is doing the right thing), he ultimately excuses it as something meaningless. This can be seen a detachment or remorselessness, depending on the context.
Quote #5
That’s when Maman’s friends came in. there were about ten in all, and they floated into the blinding light without a sound. They sat down without a single chair creaking. I saw them more clearly than I had ever seen anyone […]. But I couldn’t hear them, and it was hard for me to believe they really existed. (1.1.15)
Meursault is content being a spectator in life, and may even be slightly solipsistic (solipsism is the belief that the self is all that we can truly know exists). This is certainly one explanation for his self-prescribed isolation.
Quote #6
Soon one of the women started crying. […] I thought she’d never stop. […] The woman kept on crying. […] I wished I didn’t have to listen to her anymore. But I didn’t dare say anything. (1.1.16)
Meursault is so unattached and without pain over his mother’s death that others’ expressions of sadness annoy him more than they affect him.
Quote #7
On their way out, and much to my surprise, they all shook my hand – as if that night during which we hadn’t exchanged as much as a single word had somehow brought us closer together. (1.1.18)
Meursault does not subscribe to society’s rules about closeness; he does not easily attach or identify with other people.
Quote #8
It had been a long time since I'd been out in the country, and I could feel how much I'd enjoy going for a walk if it hadn't been for Maman. (1.1.19)
Meursault is so matter-of-fact in his physical desires that he has no room for sadness or sentimentality in his heart.
Quote #9
[M]y joy when the bus entered the nest of lights that was Algiers and I knew I was going to go to bed and sleep for twelve hours. (1.1.27)
Ever notice that Meursault sleeps a lot? Yes, we did too.
Quote #10
It occurred to me that anyway one more Sunday was over that Maman was buried now, that I was going back to work, and that, really, nothing had changed. (1.2.11)
Meursault was isolated from his mother both before and after her death; this is why "nothing [has] changed."
Quote #11
[…] he asked me again if I wanted to be pals. I said it was fine with me: he seemed pleased. (1.3.7)
Here we see that Meursault doesn’t pursue isolation; it’s just that it is usually the path of least resistance for him. When the easiest road is friendship, then he takes that one instead.
Quote #12
She was wearing a pair of my pajamas with the sleeves rolled up. When she laughed I wanted her again. A minute later she asked me if I loved her. I told her it didn't mean anything but that I didn't think so. She looked sad. But as we were fixing lunch, and for no apparent reason, she laughed in such a way that I kissed her. (1.4.3)
Meursault is isolated even from the one woman in his life.
Quote #13
First we heard a woman’s shrill voice and then Raymond saying, "You used me, you used me. I’ll teach you to use me." There were some thuds and the woman screamed, but in such a terrifying way that the landing immediately filled with people […]. The woman was shrieking and Raymond was hitting her." (1.4.4)
Paradoxically, Raymond is at once so attached to yet so removed from this woman that he abuses her for cheating on him. (He has to be attached to get emotional, but removed—and evil—to bring himself to hurt her.)
Quote #14
And from the peculiar little noise coming through the partition, I realized he was crying. For some reason I thought of Maman. But I had to get up early the next morning. I wasn’t hungry, and I went to bed without any dinner. (1.4.7)
Meursault approaches a state of consciousness here—surely the following thought (about Maman) had to do with the fact that Salamano is crying over his dog, whereas Meursault couldn’t even cry over his mother. But because we’re only in Chapter Four, and it’s far too early for Meursault to have a revelation, he truncates his own thinking by going to bed. Nighty night, Meursault.
Quote #15
That evening Marie came by to see me and asked me if I wanted to marry her. I said it didn’t make any difference to me and that we could if she wanted to. Then she wanted to know if I loved her. I answered the same way I had the last time, that it didn’t mean anything but that I probably didn’t love her. "So why marry me, then?" she said. I explained to her that it didn’t really matter and that if she wanted to, we could get married. […] Then she pointed out that marriage was a serious thing. I said, "No." (1.5.4)
With characteristic emotional indifference and detachment, Meursault answers Marie’s question with brutal honesty. However, his honesty betrays his ignorance of the range of human emotion, and perhaps even more than that, his primarily sexual interest in Marie.
Quote #16
She just wanted to know if I would have accepted the same proposal from another woman, with whom I was involved in the same way. I said, "Sure." Then she said she wondered if she loved me, and there was no way I could know about that. After another moment’s silence, she mumbled that I was peculiar, that that was probably why she loved me but that one day I might hate her for the same reason. I didn’t say anything, because I didn’t have anything to add, so she took my arm with a smile and said she wanted to marry me. (1.5.4)
Check out the line, "I didn’t have anything to add." Look familiar? This is what Meursault says after his execution sentence is read. Does he honestly never have anything to say? Or is it that anything he could say would be pointless?
Quote #17
Then he said, very quickly and with an embarrassed look, that he realized that some people in the neighborhood thought badly of me for having sent Maman to the home, but he knew me and he knew I loved her very much. I still don’t know why, but I said that until then I hadn’t realized that people thought badly of me for doing it, but that the home had seemed like the natural thing since I didn’t have enough money to have Maman cared for. (1.5.9)
Old Salamano’s apologetic comment is the first instance of society’s negative opinion of Meursault that Meursault is aware of—at least as far as we’ve seen. Meursault, of course, doesn’t seem to care.
Quote #18
We [Raymond and Meursault] stared at each other without blinking, and everything came to a stop there between the sea, the sand, and the sun, and the double silence of the flute and the water. It was then that I realized that you could either shoot or not shoot. (1.6.18)
Even if there is no meaning to life, every person faces a choice in every situation. At this point in the book, however, Meursault’s sense of detachment prevents his thinking or acting rationally.
Quote #19
Then I fired four more times at the motionless body where the bullets lodged without leaving a trace. And it was like knocking four quick times on the door of unhappiness. (1.6.24)
Meursault recognizes that his action will lead to "unhappiness," yet he doesn’t stop himself. It’s interesting that he takes the agency for the latter four shots ("I fired four more times") but not for the initial shot ("The trigger gave").
Quote #20
The investigators had learned that I had "shown insensitivity" the day of Maman’s funeral. […] He [the lawyer] asked if I had felt any sadness that day. […] I answered that I had pretty much lost the habit of analyzing myself and that it was hard for me to tell him what he wanted to know. I probably did love Maman, but that didn’t mean anything. At one time or another all normal people have wished their loved ones were dead. Here the lawyer interrupted me and he seemed very upset. He made me promise I wouldn’t say that at my hearing or in front of the examining magistrate. (2.1.4)
Characteristically, Meursault’s honest answer betrays just how detached and apathetic he seems toward certain affairs or concepts. He refuses to adopt the perception that is approved by society; he refuses to lie to save himself.