Can detachment lead us to happiness? Adressing The Stranger-Part 1
Meursault is the most detached character I have ever encountered in my literary experience. This extreme detachment and his perspective towards life make him one of the most unique characters I have come across. As a reader I cannot say I fully understand this character's motivation however, I can relate to his reasoning at some extent. I believe that the author of this book, Albert Camus, was aiming to base his book on one of the biggest questions we all have, how can we achieve happiness? Therefore by searching for that answer myself, reading this book gave me a number of things to re consider about my own happiness, and all thanks to the intriguingly round characterization of Meursault. After reading part one of this book and analyzing the main character and his life I have come to the conclusion that perhaps it is possible of attain happiness by being emotional detached.
Emotional attachment is “a connection that fastens things together"(Free dictionary). It is important to understand what detachment is in order to understand Meursault characterization better. Based on my experience as a reader you must be very open minded when reading the stranger, otherwise you wouldn't be able to understand how detachment might actually lead us to experience happiness and satisfaction in our lives. I am aware of this because ever since the first lines of the book, "Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe. I don't know. I got a telegram from the home...that doesn't mean anything. Maybe it was yesterday", I have been bias considering Meursault as a cold and detached character throughout part one. It was not until I had to re read some of the chapters that I understood that he was something beyond my original judgment of him. Then I grew more and more interested on his perspective on life and considered this theory.
Throughout part one Meursault mentions that he has happy life. If seen from a general point of view, his life is pretty standard. He is portrayed as a regular man with a regular job without outstanding anyone around him. However according to his statement, "I wasn't interested in a change of life...people never change their lives, that in any case one life was as good as another and I wasn't dissatisfied with mine at all", this could be somewhat interpreted as an actual happy life by the audience. This is not only a contradiction to our society’s' beliefs but something we cannot wrap our minds around. Since when having a "repetitive common life" makes a person happy and most of all satisfied?! The author of this book understood something most of us cannot. Emotionally attaching ourselves may actually cause us to be depressed and this is because we are attached to failing as well as succeeding which is why we cannot succeed to be happy. Depression is something Meursault was never described to experience. And reading this book could actually be an opportunity rather than a lesson. However, easier said than done. Living detached is one of the most if not the most things to practice. We have been taught to attach ourselves ever since the beginning of our lives, to our mothers; the ones who gave us birth and natured us. How could we possibly live by saying "it occurred to me that anyway one more Sunday was over, that Maman was buried now, that I was going back to work, and that, really, nothing had changed" like Meursault did? How could we possibly become that detached to not be "dissatisfied" with our lives?
At the end of part one Meursault experienced a change from his usual monotone life to a unusual emotional experience that led him to live differently. Even though he constantly claims that in life and in a man there is no actual change, it was clear that his life had changed, even if he didn't intend for it to happen. In the book Meursault killed a man. But the reason of why he did it is not actually explained by the author. It was not self defense and it was not that Meursault was threaten by the Arab either. Therefore, as a reader I had to analyze his reasoning. And I came to the conclusion that Meursault is not an irrational character but an unreasonable one. He did not need a reason to not cry for his mother as he did not need one for killing a man. To him he did not do anything wrong but those around him instead the opposite. In this last chapter, when Meursault describes leaving his world of happiness and "knocking four quick times on the door of unhappiness" he is aware that things will ever be the same. However, Meursault perspective did not change. Which causes me to think that his perspective is not actually based on what he experiences but a continuously practice ever since a change. I believe that what led Meursault think this way is when he realized that life itself killed ambitions. As he stated, "when I was a student, I had lots of ambitions like that. But when I had to give up my studies I learned very quickly that none of it really mattered" and for some reason killing a man is the same, it doesn't really matter. And this could be because Meursault is actually too focused on himself and his surroundings to a point that those who come across in his life are nothing more than that, people who come an go, and all in a non emotional way.
This reminds me of the movie I <3 huckabees. In this movie LIFE and how to live it in order to be happy is also discussed. One of the methods to live happily is by considering life as something meaningless. For example, even when Meursault considered the death of his mother as meaningless he still stated that he was not unhappy with his life. So what does this tell us? Looking at this situation from an outside perspective it is "sick" to be that cold. You are not only utterly misunderstood by everyone around you but there is no way to be able to relate to someone else when you consider everything as meaningless. And even if you encounter someone who shares a similar point of view wouldn't that bond be meaningless as well? According to our definition of happiness it is important to value people and things around us and cherish and protect them for as long as we can. Therefore we can create good memories and these will accumulate in a way that would make us think that we had a happy life. However if these memories are not enough, then that person would consider most of his life as miserable and not be happy in the present. Therefore seen this way Meursault method actually makes sense. If we life by being g present every single moment of our lives, not remembering the past or planning the future, then these memories not really matter and we can finally enjoy living and not simply the thought of living that the future holds.
In conclusion for part one, as a reader I was able to gain so much from this character. I think that Albert Camus is someone who has too much to teach to the society, and writing this book was a great way to communicate his thoughts on life. Even though we cannot relate to it or even understand it is possible that the way he sees life might actually be a door towards happiness. In other words living detached may actually be a unbreakable promise to ourselves to be happy and satisfied exactly with the way our lives are, even if we are in prison.
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