Read about The Stranger
Class Discussion Questions:
- What do you make of the narrator's emotional involvement in the world around him? Is he masking real concern, or does he truly experience one thing as more important than another?
- How does his response to events in his life challenge your sympathy as a reader?
- How does the narrative style, which in some way reflects the emotional distance of the protagonist, threaten (or enhance) your involvement in reading this novel?
- How does the trial change how we feel about his emotional detachment in the first part of the novel?
- From what point of view is Meursault narrating his own experiences? How does Camus play around with this first-person narration?
- What is the significance of the story about the Czechoslovakian?
- When Meursault looks at his reflection in the tin plate (p. 81), what does he realize? What does this discovery have to do with the narration style?
- Why does Meursault's lawyer use first-person to talk about his client (p. 103)? What effect does this have on Meursault?
- According to Meursault, what is the problem with the guillotine as a form of execution?
- If Meursault still has not been called to his execution by the end of the narrative (he couldn't have, right?), then what is the outcome of this story?
