Meursault's Growth throughout The Stranger

  The first part of The Stranger is parallel to the second part. But, at the same time, they both focus on opposite versions of Meursault. The book is parallel in a very literal sense because of its physical structure. Meursault is a different person in the second half. He grows in unexpecting ways, and his character develops as he slowly indulges more information about himself. The main difference between the first and second parts is the sentence structure. Meursault narrates using concise and literal sentences in the first half of the novel. His longer sentences are describing literal things, facts, or his surroundings. He almost never analyzes his emotions, and we get little information on his past. In the second half, Meursault opens up a bit. He shows more emotion, his sentences get longer, and he shows a more analytical side of himself. Compared to the first half of the book, Meursault uses longer sentences. Even though the majority of his statements are just accounts of events that occurred, he gives a lot more statements on how he feels during his trial. He asks a lot of rhetorical questions and delves deeper into his emotions. He narrates how bothered he is by his lack of representation in the trial, and talks through his emotions about why his own account might not even matter (98). There are fewer facts represented in the second half of the book, and they are replaced with more of Meursault’s emotions. He says that “I didn’t feel much remorse for what I’d done… I would have liked to have tried explaining to him cordially, almost affectionately, that I had never been able to truly feel remorse for anything” (100). Even though this statement is more about his lack of emotion, we still get more information on how he feels than in the first half. In the first half of the book, when Meursault says he would “like to do” something, it is usually a physical action to satisfy a physical desire. In the second half, we get more cases like this, where Meursault would like to speak about his emotions. Meursault expresses a lot of emotions toward Marie, ranging from missing her to pretending like he doesn’t care about her. But, no matter how many times he concludes that he doesn’t care about her, he always ends up thinking about her again. 

The last thing, the one that I think is the biggest difference between part 1 and part 2 Meursault, is his feelings toward being judged. In the first half, we get a lot of instances where Meursault expresses his fear of being judged. He often wishes that he hadn’t said something to prevent others from judging him. In the second half, he seems to care less about what others think. Although he is aware of the crowd’s feelings toward him, he doesn’t say he is upset about being judged as he does in part one. The best example of how Meursault doesn’t fear hatred or judgment from others is right at the end of the novel when he says that “I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate” (123). At the beginning of the book, Meursault would have been anxious to have to hear the judgment and hatred from such a large crowd, but by the end of the novel, he is accepting of hatred from others. Meursault’s growth throughout the book is not exactly clear, but it is definitely present. By the end of the novel, he is more in tune with his emotions and he has made progress toward getting past his insecurity of being judged.