In the first part of "The Stranger" I noticed focus on the existentialist pillars: Death and The Rejection of Meaning Giving Narratives, and Passion/Engagement.
"Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don't know"
This quote is so nonchalant and comes off almost uncaring. Meursault seems to have no sympathy or sadness towards the news of his mother's death. This is because any existentialist knows that death is inveitable and final. He shows no grief or sadness because he can not do anything about it. It doesn't do any good to cry or worry about it because it is going to happen to all of us at some point and he can't take back her death, so he sees no point in putting meaning to it.
"The trigger gave; I felt the smooth underside of the butt; and there, in that noise, sharp and deafening at the smae time, is where it all started. I shook off the sweat and sun. I knew that I had shattered the harmony of the day, the execeptional silence of a beach where I'd been happy. Then I fired four more tmes 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"
Meursault rejects the meaning of murder. This is because his actions seem to have no preconceptions, therefore can not be considered murder. He also shoots the Arab's body four more times after he is dead, just because he can. To him death is final and inevitable, so ending it at one point compared to another means nothing, because death is unavoidable anyway. The other aspect of death being final leads Meursault not to see the cruelty in shooting the Arab after he was already dead. To him it is no different than shooting a deer again. It does't matter if he gets shot again because he is already dead.
"He wanted to write her a letter. 'one with a punch and also some things in it to make her sorry for what she's done.' Then, when she came running back, he'd go to bed with her and 'right at the last minute' he'd spit in her face and throw her out. Yes, that would punish her, I thought. But Raymond told me he didn't think he could write the kind of letter it would take and that he'd thought of asking me to write it for him. Since I didn't say anthing. he asked if I'd mind doing it right then and I said no."
This is another example of the Rejection of Meaning Giving Narrative pillar of existentialim. The morals that society knows would lead any of us to deny writing that letter for Raymond. Knowing that writing her this letter would lead to everything Raymond told you he would do is just something that people morally could not agree to. But becasue this has no gain or loss for Meursault, he does it. Plus, his pal Raymond asks him to. He sees no problem in this so he does it. He rejects society's morals and the meaning of them to write the letter for him
"Then she wanted to know if I loved her. I answered the same way I had 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"
Meursault's engagement with Marie is odd, he doesn't seem to care about the things others care about such as marriage and love. Marie is just a woment that Meursault sees movies, eats dinner, and sleeps with. He doesn't seem to care about marriage and if they get married or not. He just kind of writes it off as no big deal. Marriage, a usually very important commitment to society, Meursault seems to not care either way.
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