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.

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.