The Stranger

The Stranger, Camus's first novel, is both a brilliantly crafted story and an illustration of Camus's absurdist world view. The novel tells the story of an emotionally detached, amoral young man named Meursault. He does not cry at his mothers funeral, does not believe in God and kills a man he barely knows without any discernible motive. For his crime, Meursault is deemed a threat to society and sentenced to death. When he comes to accept the "gentle indifference of the world" he finds peace with himself and with the society that persecutes him.