From Monday night's The Stranger reading to last night's reading, it is evident that Mersault develops as a character. First, his view of death changes. In the first paragraph of the novel, he talks about his his mother's death in short, detached sentences, with no emotion in his writing. However, the second time he faces the concept of death (after he shoots the Arab), he describes more explicitly and emotionally the effect that the Arab's death will have on him. "I shook off the sweat and sun. I knew that I had shattered the harmony of the day, the exceptional silence of a beach where I'd been happy...And it was like knocking four quick times on the door of unhappiness" (59). In this description, Mersault breaks away from his usual short, detached sentences and uses metaphors and long sentences to tell the reader that every bullet he fired brought him closer to unhappiness.
Another way that Mersault develops is from always thinking in the present to thinking in retrospect and of the future. For example, when Marie first pops the marriage question, he replies that "it doesn't make any difference to me..." (41). However, at the beach house, after spending time with Masson and his wife, he says that, "For the first time, maybe, I really thought I was going to get married" (50). This shows how he has started to think of the future and that marriage now might make a difference to him.
Great attention to language, Deepon.
Posted by: Bernie | 09/16/2012 at 10:11 PM