Mersault

Mersault makes me feel like when we have realized that life is worth nothing we live our lives according to what happens instead of how we want to live it. Mersault does not put any extra effort into his life, everything is the same for him and he likes knowing that his life is not going to change anymore than it is going currently. Mersault is a “stranger” because to us his lack of emotion makes it hard for us to understand him. I do think that we can make ourselves “strangers” when we do things to separate ourselves from other people. I separate myself from people sometimes because I believe that no one understands me and the only person that can truly understand my thinking is me. I like to be alone sometimes when I am reflecting on things that are occurring in my life, and that does make me a stranger because instead of having those thoughts in my head I can share them with someone else. What can make someone a “stranger” is their inability to express their thoughts in a way that is understandable to everyone else. I know that things I understand may not be as easy for me as it is for someone else to understand. This does not make us more or any less human than anyone else because life is about making mistakes and learning from them.

Mersault has changed so much since the beginning of the book, partly due to the many people that have influenced his life. In the very beginning of the book Mersault was very detached and many people thought that was insensitive, because he was living a normal life and his mother had just passed away. Mersault is misunderstood because his view of life is very different. Mersault believes that "since we're all going to die, it's obvious that when and how don't matter." Mersault's outlook on life is very different from mine because I believe that there is meaning in life, while Mersault believes that we're all going to die so there is no point in living life when it will not matter in the end. Mersault does care in a way because in class we discussed that you can actually care about something, not trying to care about it but you do because you are thinking about it.

Going to jail allowed Mersault to recognize how he took advantage of his freedom. While Mersault was in jail for the first couple of days he had nothing to do but he spent most of his time observing the things in his room. Mersault had a lot of time to think about his life and he began to remember things that had long been forgotten. I believe that during this time Mersault missed having freedom because while in jail his freedom was taken away and before he was sent to jail he did not live his life as he wanted to. Mersault is regretful of taking advantage of the opportunities and sitting in jail waiting for his sentence makes him live each day for what it really is, an opportunity.