Meursault's Use of a Double "Je" in the narration

Shattuck, Roger. “Two Inside Narratives: Billy Budd and L’Etranger." Modern Critical Views, Albert Camus. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1989. 13-18. Print.

In this comparison article, Roger Shattuck addresses the similar narrative styles of Herman Melville’s Billy Budd and Albert Camus’s The Stranger. Shattuck’s view on The Stranger is that Meursault cannot fully separate what he inwardly knows himself to be from what and how society judges him to be. Meursault doesn’t defend himself, nor show any remorse, against the charges sentenced to him by the narrow and distorted justice system; thus, he appears to be indifferent. Shattuck points out that Meursault’s change in his state of being can be detected through the narrative style that at first seems to be limited to Meursault’s immediate experiences in which are recorded without the influences of civilized living. He claims that the narration allows one to barely notice the shifts in point of view. Shattuck states, “The primitive first person singular of passive sensation has gradually secreted beside itself another, highly penetrating person of reflection” (14). This first person singular tense of passive sensation and experience has concealed beside itself another person of reflection. This sensation “asserts itself in the style in the shape of a double je, which functions simultaneously as first person and as third person looking back astonished” (14).It is the vague and shifting use of a double je in Camus’s French version that allows the reader to witness Meursault as a human consciousness undergoing an inner change, which is experienced very late for a physically mature man.

Roger Shattuck’s emphasis on Meursault’s use of a double je to describe certain behaviors is relevant because it helps us think about how the differences between the French and the English languages affect our level of measuring Meursault’s indifference. His view allows a reader to think about how Meursault’s indifference may only be the appearing result of the effect of the loss of the French double je in the English version, which then allows the reader to think about the extent of sacrifices and inaccuracies that may occur in experiencing the English version. The double je in French is a way of using pronouns to layer and complicate the point of view. Since there is no direct equivalence of a double je in the English language, an American reader may fail to notice where the narration is shifting points of view. Therefore, Shattuck suggests thoughts about how the English translated version may distort our assessment of Meursault’s indifference and allow for many misinterpretations of important key details. The double je is what easily allows the reader, who understands French, to decipher between the first-person claims and the third-person reflecting claims in the original un-translated version, because the reader is aware of and understands the functions of a double je. Because the English narration allows one to barely notice the shifting point of view, it makes it very easy for the reader to overlook and miss certain details. Overlooking these detail and shifts in point of view suggests many complications for the reader’s willingness to identify Meursault’s, especially since the shifts in narration are what indicate Meursault’s change in state of being.