He doesn’t believe that life has meaning nor does he seek to create through relationships. (Kierkegaard vehemently disagreed.) While absurdism might seem at first only tangential to The Stranger it is in fact at the heart of the story. It is only through accepting the absurd that one can experience their own freedom. Camus believed that this last option was the best. One must acknowledge the absurd but continue to live. One takes a “leap” into the unprovable in this scenario. Second, one might turn to religion or spirituality to find a meaning that doesn’t really exist. The first of these is to commit suicide or “escape existence.” It’s an option, neither Camus nor Kierkegaard believed was the right one. Camus believed that human beings have three different ways that they might confront that meaninglessness. Specifically, absurdism that is, the belief that life is essentially meaningless despite the human desire for it not to be. Today, Albert Camus (along with Soren Kierkegaard) is regarded as a leader of the existentialist movement. Antagonist: Raymond, Meursault himself, the nature of life.

Climax: The murder of the Arab on the beach.This means that when presented with a choice, Meursault simply acts without worrying about the consequences or how that action might be perceived. Meursault, like Camus, believes in the meaninglessness of life. The story follows Meursault, an unusual man living in Algiers who floats from one part of his life to the next without conviction or too much emotion. Camus was one of the pioneers of this form of philosophy and used it as the guiding principle in the conception and creation of The Stranger. This novel is certainly his best-known work of fiction. The Stranger by Albert Camus is regarded as one of the finest examples of absurdist fiction ever written.