The Outsider

English- Unit 4
Essay- “The Outsider” By Albert Camus
Topic: “ He didn't understand me, and he rather held it against me. I wanted to assure him that I was just like everyone else, exactly like everyone else.”
Is Meursault like everyone else?

Meursault is like everyone else, exactly like everyone else. He is a highly sensuous character who, like everyone else, has desires, feels pain and feels joy. However, unlike everyone else, he refuses to lie about, when and why he feels such things.

Lying is not only saying what isn't true.
It is...saying more than is true, and in the case of the human heart,
saying more then one feels.

Meursault does not see the importance of doing this for the welfare of society. It is for this very fact society fears him. He threatens to expose reality- the truth, regarding human emotions and instincts. Meursault epitomises the reality of the human character, which society prefers to veil in social graces and patterns of life, all for t...