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.

Absurdity as a Factor of Meursault's Indifference

Showalter, English Jr. The Stranger: Humanity and the Absurd. New York: Simon & Schuster Macmillan, 1996. Print.

Showalter’s view on The Stranger is that Camus tried to remain true to his vision of the absurd, the meaningless of existence, through to the very end and avoid the normal existentialist conclusion of the absurd as an excuse for a rise of faith and as to prove something. Showalter argues that Camus’s first-person narration was intended to be hard to distinguish exactly when and how Meursault speaks. This is a way to emphasize the strange inconsistency in Meursault, where the story he tells is in some extent of a story that is forced to be spoken. Showalter argues that the brief first-person narrative portrays its hero’s story as an unemotional confession, where the narration serves to highlight the intellectual disabilities within the character, Meursault. The narration dramatizes the problems of representation, communication, and interpretation and categorizes Meursault’s inability to give a convincing explanation as a failure of language, instead of a failure of the judicial system or the code of society. The brief first-person narrative, involving suppressed dialogue, enabled Camus to feel silent while writing The Stranger, and thus allowing him to create a fictional image of life within the absurd. Showalter argues that Camus “uses Meursault’s mind as the glass partition through which the world is viewed,” where the “technique makes the narrator a purely passive observer” (12). This technique’s effect is similar to the effects of observing someone in a phone booth from the outside, where all we see is the gestures, but do not hear the conversation. Showalter claims, “Such a person would appear absurd” (12).

Showalter’s suggestions of Meursault’s inconsistency and the difficulties of characterizing his exact speech in his telling of the story lead to different interpretations of the story along with different circumstances for who a reader will be able and willing to identify with. Showalter’s idea of the intentional, hard-to-distinguish narration and Meursault’s constant and strange inconsistency allow a reader different perspectives of viewing Meursault, where “indifferent” may not be the correct or only label. The argument involving the creation of a fictional image of life within the absurd through the use of a first-person narrative suggests the presence of a potential easiness for a reader to relate and identify with Meursault. Especially since this creation was enabled by Camus’s ability to theoretically feel silent and as a part of this life within the absurd while writing the novel. The argument of Meursault’s mind as a glass partition that creates a passive observing narrator recommends to a reader a different way of viewing, reading, and interpreting the narrative. The narrator is placing the reader in a perspective that reflects and easily relates to Meursault, which may help to analyze and measure the extent of sympathy a reader feels for Meursault. The effects of this technique suggest a reader to reevaluate first impressions of Meursault as indifferent and consider the absurdity as a factor of an “apparent” indifference.