Meursault's Balloon

 When Albert Camus wrote the Stranger, he was actively working with the French resistance against the Nazis. I need to reconcile his completely apathetic protagonist with a deeply passionate, and active agenda of his own. So, what about Meursault, his worldview, and his experience in the book can be framed as a cautionary tale about passivity? A call to action?

We don’t know what Meursault’s emotional state was before his mother died, but I assume that he was capable of expressing and recognizing emotions. I believe this because at the end of the book, he has that outburst at the priest trying to convert him. After violently shaking and screaming at this man, Meursault feels “as if that blind rage had washed me clean” (122). Suddenly, he knows exactly what he is feeling! He is taking actions that correlate with those emotions! I believe this capability didn’t just pop up out of nowhere. Meursault had this capability at some other point in his life, for many years. Then, I theorize that because his mother died, he packaged all his emotions into a little Meursault-emotions-balloon and just floated along with them, detached by the membrane. This is exactly what Camus intends to warn us abou

The way Meursault perceives the world separates himself from his actions. He has this idea that nothing matters, and thus has no personal accountability. He has this complete neutrality in dealing with the world, and thus has no agency. He just floats along. Meursault believes that true autonomy doesn’t exist. He says “what did his God or the lives people choose or the fate they think they elect matter to me when we’re all elected by the same fate” (121). He sees that other people believe in autonomy, but they are all doomed to the same fate and have no real say. Their paths have already been elected. But, in believing these things, Meursault has made them true. He has chosen, in a way, this floating lifestyle. People can influence him, but he doesn't engage with them or himself, so he can't influence anything. Back to the balloon thing now!

Meursault is attached to this emotion balloon, which sort of lifts him away from the rest of society. If he were to actively engage with the contents of the balloon, and share them with other members, he wouldn’t be stuck above the rest of them. But because he asserts nothing matters, and has this disconnect, he is in a position where the others can pull him along, as illustrated by their various means of influencing the balloon in the diagram. So while perhaps Meursault has adapted this balloon technique out of the truth that nothing matters, or has isolated himself from all of his emotions to stay safe from them. But in doing so, he is susceptible to a pop! When the emotions inside can no longer be contained or the outer stimuli get too extreme (that’s what happens before the murder), and the balloon pops, and Meursault is just shoved in a random direction. He is shoved into a random choice, because he didn't make his own decision in a situation where a decision is imperative. In the situation Camus is writing from, action is imperative, and I think he is using Meursault's story to caution against neutrality.

The court is absurd. Rather than turning into a debate about Meursault’s actions, the debate is about his character. Is he a monster or is he just your average jovial guy? He is neither.  But in such a polarizing situation as Nazi France, “neither” isn’t an option. Because Meursault didn’t choose, he ended up where he did. The ridicule of the court is almost the internal deliberations someone has about themself, in such a situation as Nazi France. There is no question whether Meursault committed the crime. The question is what happens, now that he has. And it depends on his character. In allowing himself to be complicit, to be swept up into such an absurd display of violence, he has painted himself as a monster. I think this is a really powerful message to drive people to rebel in Nazi-controlled France. The picture Camus paints is of a neutral player being pushed into the wrong side, and thus becoming a monster. 

Conclusion: make choices.