Meursault's The Strawman (1993)

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MEURSAULT THE STRAW MAN

Author(s): ROBERT R. BROCK


Source: Studies in the Novel, Vol. 25, No. 1 (spring 1993), pp. 92-100
Published by: Johns Hopkins University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/29532917
Accessed: 30-11-2015 05:49 UTC

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MEURSAULT THE STRAWMAN

ROBERT R. BROCK

. . . and Marxism
psychoanalysis

always ended up by interpreting


everything. They had ceased to
understand: they explained.1
Jean d'Ormesson

Although d'Ormesson was referring to the critic's approach to literature


in general, it should be obvious to anyone reading learned articles on
'
U Etranger thathe could have had their treatmentof Camus shortmasterpiece
specifically inmind. This desire to explain, rather than to understand, means
that the book will not be discussed as a whole, as an entity, but as a series of
all but unrelated segments. There may well be some discussion of the story as
a manifestation of the absurde, as well as arguments over just what that word

entails, but the book will be examined primarily as an expression of some


political, social or psychological cant based on a subjective reading of one or
two scenes.

For most critics, the book is either an indictment of the French judicial
system that deprives the proletariat of an effective voice by stealing its
language, or it is the case-study of a man with more Oedipal problems than
even Freud ever dreamed of. One doesn't have to spend much time in a musty
library to verify my charge; Ben Stoltzfus has already done the essential
legwork for his article "Camus' UEtranger, a Lacanian Reading."2 Perusing
itwill prove d'Ormesson's point, and mine; some scenes will be "explained,"
but thebasic message o?L'Etranger will not be noticed, let alone understood.
Stoltzfus's research shows thatMeursault is either a nihilistic juvenile
delinquent (Ren? Girard) or a man of rigorous honesty (Germaine Bree). He
could have been condemned to the guillotine because he won't play the game
(Sartre and Robert Champigny) or because he is inept and wants to die
(Monique Wagner). The death of the Arab was either an accident (Louis
Hudon) or a crimen exmachina (Girard). On theother hand, perhaps the judges

92

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CAMUS / 93

condemn Meursault in order to "destroy the truth he embodies" (Albert


Maquet). Of course, thewhole thingmight be a fatum as in ancient Greek
literature (Carl Viggiani).
As to the four extra shots thatbaffle the judge, J.H. Mathews says they
might be the firstmanifestation ofMeursault's will, while Hudon sees them
as an of exasperation. However, Julian L. Stamm is certain that
expression
Meursault was
really a homosexual and that the shots on the beach were
ejaculations. In his article, Stoltzfus goes on to note thatBrian T. Fitch has
covered these and various other interpretationso?L'Etranger inhis study3and
concludes Alain Robbe-Grillet's comment, "I am the
by citing stranger."
(L'?tranger, c'est moi.) Stoltzfus then comes to the very dangerous conclusion

that thebook is "a work thatreads the reader." In other words, "We each read
the book with our own unconscious desire."
The unfortunate thinghere is thathe is right. It is unfortunate in thata too
personal identificationwith thework, or itshero, leads to readings thatare then
presented to us not as one person's very subjective interpretation of, in this
case, but rather as self-evident truth. The book be?
L'Etranger, objective,
comes then not what the author wrote in fact, but what the critic would have
written/meant given his/herpersonal bent had he/she written it.The critic does
not say, for instance, this scene makes me think thatCamus may have wanted
to supplant his father in his mother's bed, but that it is perfectly obvious that
he wished to do so. As Hudon wrote in his essay on L'Etranger, "Many put
theirnickel in the philosophical slot, and existentialism comes out of every?
where, others in the new critical slot, and it rains symbols."4
Critics are willing to quote authors on any given subject save one: what
the authors thinkof critics. Stoltzfus, whose article presents a highly personal
view of L'Etranger, takes Freudians to task and insists thathis approach is the
only valid one. (For thosewho do not subscribe to either dogma, thedifference
between them is not all thatobvious.) In any event, perhaps all critics should
read, or reread, what Sartre had to say about criticism.
literary

When I picked up a book, itmade no difference if I opened it and closed


it twenty times, I could see that it didn't Sliding over this
change.
uncorruptable surface: the text, my sight was only a minuscule surface
accident, it disturbed ... I left turned off the light:
nothing my bureau,
invisible in the darkness, the book continued to glow; for itself alone.

(Quand je prenais un livre, favais beau Vouvrir et lefermer vingt fois, je

voyais bien qu'il ne s'alt?rait pas. Glissant sur cette substance incorrupt?
ible: le texte, mon regard n'?tait qi? un miniscule accident de surface, il ne
d?rangeait rien . . .je quittais le bureau, f ?teignais: invisible dans les
t?n?bres, le livre ?tincelait toujours: pour lui seul.)5

In other words, the reader has no part to play in thework. It exists indepen?
dently of him and must be approached on its own terms and not as a mirror,

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94 /BROCK

or manifestation, of "our own unconscious desire." then, must be


L'Etranger,
seen as a mirror of Camus' soul, not the critic's, a to which I shall return.
point
Stoltzfus also quotes Robbe-Grillet's statement, "each of us has a ten?

dency to conceive a history of literature that is his own story." (chacun d'entre
nous a tendance ? concevoir une histoire de la litt?rature qui est sa propre
histoire.) That is,we tend to see literatureas a reflection of ourselves. Stoltzfus
gives this quote in order to shore up his argument for a Lacanian reading. He
is correct in citing Robbe-Grillet, since this innovative author has based some
of his method of writing, not his philosophy, on Camus, as evidenced in his
critical essays. However, Robbe-Grillet does not approve of this sort of
interpretation. He also wrote that there is no connection between man and

things,where Stoltzfus, and others, see theword lame, used to describe both
thewaves and theknife blade, as being highly significant. (Has any such critic
seriously wondered what choice of vocabulary items Camus had to describe
knife blade and wave, [lame], or sea and mother, m?re and merl As theFrench
say, there aren't thirty-six.)One must also wonder why such psychological
interpretations are always predicated on the most morbid and/or prurient
readings possible.
Robbe-Grillet, in any case, does not see things the same way thatStoltzfus
and thepartisans of psychological interpretations do. For Robbe-Grillet, man
isman and things are things and things do not have human qualities. This
attitudewill be seen as antihumanist and therefore criminal and?be ignored.

The crime is to affirm that something exists in the world that is not man,
that addresses no sign to him, that has nothing in common with him ... he
sees these things, but he refuses to appropriate them, he refuses to enter into
any shady understanding with them, any complicity; he asks nothing of
them. (Le crime c'est d'affirmer qu'il existe quelque chose, dans lemonde
qui n'est pas l'homme, qui ne lui adresse aucun siqne, qui n'a rien de
commun avec lui. . . il les [les choses] voit, mais il refuse de se les

approprier, il refuse d'entretenir avec elles aucune entente louche, aucune


connivence; il ne leur demande rien.)6

This statement is clearly counter to theFreudian and Lacanian approaches to


literature.

Moreover, thedifficulty of a conventional psychological interpretationof


L'Etranger was noted by JohnK. Simon inhis article inYale French Studies.1
He considers the book to be the first successful novel in a contemporary
movement thatwill lead to Robbe-Grillet and Claude Simon, a movement
marked by its refusal of conventional social and psychological readings.
Critics who are partial to such interpretationshave claimed that thebeach
scene that leads to the shooting is the firstoutburst of poetic writing in a book
previously most noteworthy for its resolutely pedestrian narration and that it
must therefore have special significance. Forgetting the wake, the funeral

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CAMUS / 95

procession and their figura, such critics should at least look at the afternoon
and evening Meursault spent on thebalcony watching life in the streets.Even
students reading theirvery firstnovel inFrench and strugglingmightily with
the simplest language, are struck by the sheer beauty of Camus' description.
As Sunday came to an end, the streetswere filled with struttingelegant young
men and coquettish women meeting, flirting and joking. There were also the
streetlamps and streetcars and their lights reflecting off damp pavement,
bracelets and smiles. Camus describes the trees, thepaling stars and all "until
thefirstcat slowly crossed the again deserted street" (jusqu'? ce que lepremier
chat traverse lentement la rue de nouveau d?serte.) What great psychological
horror story are we tomake of that?
If the description of thebeach scene, theburning sun and the death of the
Arab are more emotionally charged, is it really because Meursault is being
pursued by some evil Mother? (Justwhy do critics who insist thathe is being
so pursued, and identify theMother as being Meursault's, i.e. Camus', never
speak of the loving relationship between Dr. Rieux and hismother inLa Peste!
Or did someone else write thatbook?) The style thatan artist chooses normally
corresponds to the events thathe is describing. Thus the beach scene is in a
more electrifying style simply because the act thatwill lead toMeursault's
execution ismore emotionally, and dramatically, charged than his spending
a quiet day on his balcony and thengoing down to a now empty street to buy
bread and pasta.
Robbe-Grillet speaks of L'Etranger inPour un nouveau roman because
Camus' hero resembles his own "heroes" in Les Gommes and Le Voyeur,
heroes thatwere inspired, at least in part, by Meursault. Even though the
literarygoals of the two authors have nothing incommon, Meursault embodies
much of what Robbe-Grillet feels the new hero should be: a single name, no
real, detailed past history, no face or physical description, no clearly defined
profession or character.8 In short, none of the standard literary tactics that
allow us to identifywith the hero and vicariously share in his trials and
tribulations. Comparing Meursault to any hero of Balzac or Stendhal should
suffice to convince all but thosemost incurably wedded to the new criticism
thatno serious links exist between the two schools of writing and thatCamus
must have had something else inmind when he wrote this book. In the same
way, Robbe-Grillet's affinity forCamus' technique, not for his philosophy,
came fromhis belief thatCamus had created a "new" literaryhero. He had not,
of course; he had simply re-invented the hero of the conte philosophique. In
any event, Camus' influence can best be seen by comparing Wallas (fromLes
Gommes) and Mathias (from Le voyeur) to Rastignac or Julien Sorel, a
comparison that should convince most thatRobbe-Grillet also had something
other than the conventional psychological novel inmind. If the doubters need
furtherproof of Robbe-Grillet's thinking, they should read what he wrote in
La Jalousie.

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96 /BROCK

Two of the protagonists, A... and Franck, are a novel that takes
reading

place inAfrica. The narrator, who listens and comments to himself but does
not speak in thenovel, notes that theynever talk about thequalities of the text.
"On the other hand, theyoften reproach theheros themselves for certain acts,
or certain character traits,as theywould formutual friends." (En revanche il
leur arrive souvent de aux h?ros eux-m?mes certains actes, ou
reprocher
certains traits de caract?re comme ils le feraient pour des amis communs.)9
The same is true for the critics' treatmento? L'Etranger even though they and
Meursault are not mutual friends. Some, Girard, for instance, will condemn
Meursault forhis "crime" even though it ismore thanobvious thatCamus does
not. Camus' sympathy, ifnot affinity, for the accused and against the judges
is a constant theme inL'Homme r?volt?. This attitudemay well make some
of Camus' admirers very uncomfortable. Nonetheless, he did write that ifone
cannot prove one's own virtue, an impossible task, the prisons must be
opened.10 That statement is a reflection of his soul, his thinking, and his
position on the question of punishment. As such, it is the only opinion that
critics should take into account when discussing his works. The critics are free
to disagree with his beliefs, but theyhave no right to falsify or to ignore them.
The major problem with standard political, psychological and sociologi?
cal interpretations o? L'Etranger is that they are by literarypeople who are in
thebusiness of seeking, and finding, learned interpretationsof literaryworks.
In his novel of studentunrest at theUniversity ofNanterre, Robert Merle, who,
like Camus, was born inAlgeria, presents us with a non-literary person. And
an Arab at that.11The Arab, Abdelaziz, is a laborer, not a university student.
As such, he is interested inmathematics, not literature, since a simple night
school certificate will allow him to get a better job, while studies in literature
will not. His would-be helper, a French student, and therefore an intellectual,
insists thathe read L'Etranger and UImmoraliste.
As Abdelaziz knows, and points out, despite all the talk about the
"absurd," the only thing that is really absurd is the story itself.As both Camus
and Abdelaziz knew, there is simply no possibility that a respectable, gain?
fully-employed European would ever have been arrested, much less tried,
convicted and executed, forhaving killed an Arab armed with a knife. At least
not in theAlgeria of 1940. (Let us not forget theArab prisoners' reaction at
findingMeursault, a European, among them.) But since the critics do not live
in thatplace and thatperiod, theyhave chosen to ignore that simple fact. They
should have started by wondering why Camus would base his novel on an
impossible situation.
In the same way, the critics have agonized over why he hadMeursault kill
an Arab. Camus has even been accused of being anti-Arab, an accusation that

he probably found too grotesque to bother to refute even though some then
mistook his silence for an admission of guilt. He could have cited the articles
he wrote attacking the government for itsmistreatment of Arabs in pre-war

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CAMUS / 97

Algeria. But he didn't. Nor did he bother to cite thedifficulties he had had with
press censors, and theCommunist Party, which, forpolitical reasons, backed
the government's anti-Arab actions. (How many of the new critics remember

thatDr. Rieux refused to cooperate with the journalist, Rambert, when the
latter informed him thathe could not, or would not, print thewhole truthon
theArabs' condition inAlgeria?)
Moreover, in a footnote to a discussion of Hitler's Germany and the
savage destruction of Lidice, Camus wrote, "We should note that atrocities
which could remind us of these excesses were committed in the colonies
(India, 1857, Algeria, 1946 etc.) by European nations who obeyed the same
irrational belief in racial superiority." (// est frappant de noter que des
atrocit?s ces exc?s ont ?t? comises aux colonies [Indes,
qui peuvent rappeler
1857, Alg?rie, 1945, etc.] par des nations europ?enes qui ob?issaient au m?me
pr?jug? irrational de sup?riorit? raciale.)11 That statement alone should put
to rest all charges of his alleged racism.
But, as some critics continue to look for "proof of his hatred of Arabs,
we are asked to note that there is no Arab culture, such as mosques and souks,
in the book. This argument assumes thatCamus should have wished to be a
Pierre Loti but I can see no reason for such an We are
latter-day assumption.
also asked to consider the alleged attack on his mother as a motive for the
killing of theArab. If one dares ask the question, "Why, ifhe hated Arabs to
that point, did he not then indulge in language thatwould cast them in an
unfavorable light?", one will simply be ignored, as the student ignored
Abdelaziz's objections. The question that should have been asked is not "why
did he kill an Arab?", but "Why did he not kill a European?".
Sartre was the firstone tonote that thebook isnot really a novel since there
is no development in the character of Meursault. (He does come to a certain

self-knowledge inprison, but thathe has changed is very debatable.) He comes


to us prettymuch a fullblown figure such as we would find in a story by
Voltaire. From this, Sartre deduced, logically, that the story is rather a conte
philosophique in the same way thatZadig andMicrom?gas are. This type of
literarywork does not have as its primary goal the simple telling of a story.
Rather, ithas a point to prove or at least to demonstrate. Why should Camus
have defended himself against those who read the book as an expression of
theirown unconscious desires or racism? Did Voltaire ever explain what he
meant inhis contes! Of course not.He assumed enough intelligence on thepart
of the reader to be able to determine thatwithout his furtherhelp.
In any examination of L'Etranger, one must start with the question, why
did Camus write thebook? Certainly not formoney, since he had no reputation
thatwould lead to serious sales. Justas certainly not to tell a story, since there
is no development inMeursault's character or conduct thatcould lead to a real
story. Certainly not, and for the above reasons, to arrive at a philosophical

position as Sartre did inLa Naus?e. As with Voltaire, theremust have been

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98 /BROCK

such a position already determined. Since the one common bond of any
importance between thiswork and, say, La Peste, R?flexions sur la guillotine,
L'Homme r?volt?, etc., is thequestion of thedeath penalty, letus consider that
to be the real subject of the book and see if such a conclusion can be justified.
(Ifwe wish todrag his father into the story, letus also remember thathis father,
who was in favor of capital punishment, witnessed an execution and was
sickened by it. As was, finally, Tarrou of La Peste.) In chapter five of
L'Etranger, Meursault thinks about his fatherwho had been, in contrast to
'
Camus own father,obliged towitness an execution and had also been revolted
by it.At the time,Meursault was disgusted by his father's reaction, but now
he understands him. "How had I not seen thatnothing was more important than
an execution and that, all in all, itwas the only truly interesting thing for a
man." (Comment pas vu que rien n'?tait
n'avais-je plus important qu'une
ex?cution capitale et que, en somme, c'?tait la seule chose vraiment
int?ressante pour un homme.)n Moreover, inU Homme r?volt?, Camus wrote,
"We will know nothing as long as we do not know ifwe have theright to kill
this individual who stands before us or to accept thathe be killed." (Nous ne
saurons rien tant que nous ne saurons pas si nous avons le droit de tuer cet

individu devant nous ou d'acepter qu il soit tu?.)14 It is obvious, at least tome,


that these quotes justifymy reading of the novel as a pamphlet against the
death penalty.
But, since themajority of people, at any given time, are in favor of capital
punishment, how can one write a book against itand make itseem a despicable
and unacceptable punishment? The answer, I feel, isby settingup a strawman.
As I said, thequestion that should have been asked iswhy Meursault did
not kill a European. The answer is, because theEuropean would have to be a
"real" person and theArab would not. That is, since Arabs had no real rights,
and often no real identity, in theAlgeria of Camus' youth, certain weaknesses
in his storywould go unnoticed ifonly because other Europeans, not Arabs,
would read thebook. If this reasoning bothers you, or seems specious, answer
the following questions. Why does theArab have no name? Why does he not
have a face or age or profession? Why has he no family, no friends?Who
speaks for him at the trial?No one! He simply does not exist other than as a
means togetMeursault condemned to theguillotine. Even inLe Grand dadais,
by Poirot-Delpech, a brilliant novel sometimes compared toL'Etranger, the
victim had a name, if only Freddy, and two relatives, if somewhat remote.
Here, there is nothing. O. Zero.

Why? Because it forces the reader to concentrate on Meursault, the


alleged murderer. It shows him atwork, at play. It talks of his friends, his dead
mother, his loves, his future both before and after the shooting. He has
neighbors, good and bad. (Raymond, too, exists only to getMeursault into a
position where he will kill a non-person.) In short, itgives us a "murderer" but

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CAMUS / 99

no victim, and the reader, Camus hopes, will be properly horrified at his unjust
conviction and death sentence. And no one will notice that theArab doesn't
exist because Camus wants it thatway. A European "victim" would demand,
ifnot equal time of the author, at least a semblance of existence. Even themost
minimal, the lowliest European would have what theArab does not: family,
friends, face, character, social position. A European victim might well have
gotten the reader's sympathy and thatwould have drawn attention away from
Meursault and his plight. Camus could not take that chance. A conte
philosophique must always be played out with a stacked deck.
In a sense, itwas the same inLa Peste, a parable of theSecond World War,
thathas only victims and no guilty. In thatbook, the rats came on their own,
without a leader. There was no evil dictator or his minions to send people to
the death camps and the incinerators. In both books, then, there is no one to
really hate, no one to blame, no one to castigate, except, of course, the system
itself that causes both death by war and death by guillotine. How very tidy.
InLe Grand dadais, our hero, Alain, accidentally kills a contortionist who
works in a strip-joint. Freddy, as I said, had a name, a job and at least two
relatives who testified, falsely itwould seem, thathis death was an irreparable
loss. Poirot-Delpech really doesn't spend any time detailing Freddy's life
because it simply is not relevant to the story,even ifhis death is. It is the same
for Camus' treatment, or rather, his non-treatment, of the Arab whose sole
contribution to the book is his death. But at least, unlike theArab, Freddy is
there, he speaks and participates, albeit minimally, in the story. Like
Meursault, Alain also is tried and convicted, but with a difference. Reflecting
on the events that got him into prison, Alain says to himself, "Like all
criminals, I deserved a spanking or the guillotine. But these two extreme
punishments, the only ones that I could have understood, ran the risk of
shocking public opinion." (Comme tous les criminelsJe m?ritais lafess?e ou
la guillotine. Mais ces deux extr?mes, les seules que
punitions j'eusse
comprises, risquaient de heurter Vopinion.)15 Instead, Alain got five years and
Meursault the guillotine.
Where Poirot-Delpech is not really trying to prove a philosophical point
and presents his characters honestly, Camus is, and, in a sense, cheats. After

all, hadMeursault gotten even an impossible five years inprison instead of the
guillotine, can anyone seriously believe that this slim book would have had a
second printing? As Judge Orthon put it in La Peste, "It's not the law that
counts, it's the sentence," (Ce n'est pas la loi qui compte, c'est la

condamnation.) And Cottard, a criminal, tells Rieux that the judge is public
enemy number one.16
There ismuch that is admirable inL'Etranger, but this subterfuge is not,
because it fails to consider that there are at least two sides to the debate over
the death penalty. But then, itdidn't really matter since the central question

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100 /BROCK

was overlooked in the rush to analyze the hero's non-existent childhood and
psyche.

UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA

NOTES

1 Jean d'Ormesson, Au plaisir de Dieu (Paris: Gallimard, Coll. Folio, 1990), p. 516.

2 Ben Stoltzfus, in Studies inLiterature and Language 31 (1989): 514-35.

3 Brian T. Fitch, L'?tranger d'Albert Camus: un texte, ses lecteurs, leurs lectures (Paris:
Larousse, 1979).

4 Louis Hudon, "The Stranger and the Critics," Yale French Studies 25 (1960): 59.

5 Jean-Paul Sartre, Les Mots (Paris: Gallimard, 1964), p. 152.

6 Alain Robbe-Grillet, Pour un nouveau roman (Paris: Gallimard, 1963), pp. 68-69.

7 JohnK. Simon, "The Glance of Idiots: The Novel of theAbsurd," Yale French Studies 25
(1960): 112.

8 Robbe-Grillet, p. 31.

9 Robbe-Grillet, La Jalousie (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1957) p. 82.

10 Albert Camus, Oeuvres compl?tes, Vol. 2 (Paris: Gallimard, 1981) p. 451.

11 Robert Merle, Derri?re la vitre (Paris: Gallimard, 1970), pp. 144-45.1 wrote to Professor
Merle asking him ifAbdelaziz was based on a real person. He answered thatall (his emphasis)
Algerian Arabs who had read L'Etranger found it inconceivable that a jury composed of
Frenchmen in colonial Algeria would have condemned another Frenchman for having killed
an Algerian pimp (his choice of word) armed with a knife. He added thatno honest pied noir
would contest that statement.

12 Oeuvres compl?tes, 2:590

13 Ibid., 1:1203.

14 Ibid., 2:414.

15 Bertrand Poirot-Delpech, Le Grand dadais (Paris: Deno?l, 1958), reprinted inFolio, p. 143.

16 Albert Camus, La Peste (Paris: Livre de Poche, 1966), p. 118.

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