Meursault as Two Different Narrators

McCarthy, Patrick. Albert Camus, The Stranger. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Print.

Patrick McCarthy analyzes the issue of language and narration in Albert Camus’s The Stranger. His point of view involves the two different languages that are given in the beginning as the narrator. In this argument, McCarthy poses two different narrators portrayed as the same character: one being an unidentified “I,” who reads the telegram, and the other being the narrator-character, who obeys the commands, like mourning the loss of a mother. One of McCarthy‘s views is that the narrator-reader of the telegram “does not accept the telegram’s authority without criticism because ‘it doesn’t mean anything,’” the narrator-reader stated. He believes “that by depicting the narrator as a reader, The Stranger is indicating to us, its own readers, how we should tackle it: we should be wary of the traps and commands it contains” (15). He also believes that the narrator’s own language provides its own inadequacy by the use of first-person phrases like “I don’t know” and “perhaps.” McCarthy stresses the inability for the reader to identify with Meursault and feel for him “the imaginative sympathy that a reader feels for a traditional hero” (29). McCarthy believes that the way The Stranger is narrated “leads to further hesitation on the reader’s part” and criticizes the traditional novel, where the reader is lead to identify with the hero (28).

McCarthy suggests that the two narrators as the same character create and magnify Meursault’s apparent indifference. This argument addresses the contradictions and confusions that result from two narrators as one character within the narration, which in fact causes Meursault to appear indifferent. McCarthy’s standpoint about the narrator-reader not accepting the authority of the telegram while the narrator-character obeys the commands and necessary duties of the telegram indicates more possibilities of frustration for a reader who is unaware of the two narrators posing as one character. Also, McCarthy’s standpoint can help a reader distinguish between the contradictions and confusions within the narration and suggest possible reasons for a reader’s difficulty and skepticism in relating and understanding Meursault. McCarthy’s idea of the narrator-reader presents issues to a reader about the ethics of reading. This concept indicates some of the potential limitations that can be placed on a reader’s ability to experience the text when the narrator indicates how the novel should be read. Thus, a reader may lead to question the authority of the narrator and think about how the novel may have been limited to only the narrator-reader’s perspective. These questions may cause a reader to analyze and consider the possible experiences and interpretations that were left out of this perspective.