From our class discussions, we noticed that Meursault acts with indifference. He doesn’t really make decisions on his own and just simply does what other people tell him to. In this sense, he lacks morality but is also not quite immoral. He is, to some extent, a reflection of the moralities of the people surrounding him. This ends up going very badly for him when he gets involved with Raymond. In the end, he gets sentenced to death after killing the Arab.
But Meursault isn't entirely a reflection of the people around him. He still makes small decisions throughout the novel. For example, when he is asked whether he would like to see his mother’s dead body or not, he says no because he doesn’t care enough about his mother. Although it may not have quite been his intention, in this scenario, his lack of morality actually helps in a sense by creating less inconvenience for the people working at the funeral.
And although he is helping people do immoral things, he is still helping people. Meursault doesn’t turn away people who need him, which can make him a good person in some people’s eyes. But of course, other people may criticize his decision to write the letter to Raymond’s mistress. Good and evil are not necessarily polar opposites. Thanos snaps half the people out of existence because he believes it is the right thing to do, and Meursault writes a letter at Raymond’s request because he believes it is the right thing to do. It can be said that they both have “moral” goals, but they just go about the wrong way of achieving them.
Similarly, the murder of the Arab can be viewed as either justified or not. Meursault tries to stop Raymond from shooting the Arab at first. It was only until the Arab pulled out the knife against Meursault that he fired five shots without regard for the Arab's life (as shown by his lack of concern during the trial). Sure, maybe it's bad that Meursault didn't care about having just murdered someone. But if he did care, he might have hesitated. And what if he did hesitate? Meursault could have been stabbed and the Arab might have gone after Raymond, injuring him more or perhaps even killing him. One could argue that it was precisely Meursault’s “lack of morality” that allowed him to quickly fire at the Arab, saving him and his friends from potential harm. So, is his "lack of morality" entirely a bad thing?
I think its important to remember the Meursault starting to walk towards to the Arab before shooting him. While the Arab man never even got up from laying down. Which complicates the morality of Meursault's murder much further.
ReplyDeleteI agree! There's definitely a gray area in Meursault's morality, and I think that it does play a role in the decisions he made throughout the novel. I find it interesting how he thinks about helping people, but in a different way than most people expect.
ReplyDeleteStill, it's vital to not fall into false neutrality when viewing his actions. There's a gradient and possible separation between good in the sense of helping whoever is around him and good in the sense of morally right or acceptable, or possibly socially acceptable. I wouldn't say his lack of morality makes him moral, but it certainly does make him helpful.
ReplyDeleteI think this is an interesting take on Meursault's character. I didn't think that he had much of a moral compass at all and just did things as they presented to him, but the idea of him wanting to help people he at least somewhat cares about doesn't diverge much from his character. I still believe, however, that the murder of the Arab was not due to any morality and kind of just happened.
ReplyDeleteThis is a really interesting post. During class discussions we mostly talked about how the court judges Meursault for his lack of morality, but we never really looked at the other side to the argument. Meursault does try to help people and make them happy, but he usually doesn't feel any remorse for his actions. Sometimes he feels a bit bad when he thinks people are judging him, but overall Meursault sometimes has good intentions bit executes them in bad ways.
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