1. Introduction
If life is absurd, how ought we to live with this fact? In L’Étranger (1942; translated into English as The Outsider or The Stranger), Albert Camus set out to give a literary rendition of what it means to live under the absurdity of life.Footnote 1 In this novella, the protagonist Meursault seems to enjoy life in the here-and-now, detached from the moral conventions that society tries to force upon the individual. One day, on the beach, under the relentless heat of the Algerian sun, he fatally shoots an unnamed Arab. Thus, his life of earthly pleasures takes a turn for the worse, when he is imprisoned and condemned to death. While Meursault awaits his execution, a chaplain pays him a visit and invites him to seek salvation in the Lord, upon which Meursault has a passionate outburst of emotions. In that moment, it seems as if he has expressed something important about the absurd.
What exactly this novella teaches us about the absurd has been a subject of lively debate since its publication. Some have argued that the novella simply culminates in an affectively laden expression of something that Meursault has known from the very beginning of the story (e.g. Thody Reference Thody1989: 14–44): namely, that life is absurd. Others have read it as a genuine epiphany, an insight which Meursault gains once incarcerated (e.g. Webber Reference Webber2018: 20–38).
In this paper, I argue that Thody is correct in thinking that Meursault has been aware of the absurdity of life insofar as it concerns an existential lack: the absence of a certain kind of meaning. This constitutes Meursault’s lucidity, which characterizes him from the very beginning of the novella. He has remained in the dark, however, with regard to the existential demand that is part and parcel of the absurd. As Camus informs us in The Myth of Sisyphus (Reference Camus1942), the concept of the absurd is twofold, involving both something that is inescapably missing from life (e.g. a lack of meaning) and a normative fact about human nature that stands in opposition to that lack (e.g. a demand for meaning).Footnote 2 By failing to accommodate the existential demand in his attitude towards life, Meursault has therefore failed to fully understand the absurd.
My argument unfolds as follows. First, I clarify Meursault’s lucidity with respect to the negative component of existential absurdity. Second, I explain how Meursault fails to exhibit awareness of the existential demand in the first half of the novella. Third, I argue that he becomes aware of the existential demand after being incarcerated for murdering the unnamed Arab. Fourth, I clarify how, if the existential demand is an inescapable part of the human condition, it could have gone unnoticed to begin with. And fifth, I detail the far-reaching implications of Meursault’s awakening: not only does it open him up to lamenting the absurd, rather than being unphased by it; it also leads him to an awareness of his existential guilt. For, the possibility of actively shaping the meaning of his life, made urgent by the awakening of his existential desire, is now in the past. Even though Meursault can be seen as a martyr of the negative belief that Camus requires of human beings, his story is a cautionary tale with respect to the desires that we ought to embrace.
This analysis of L’Étranger provides crucial insight into two aspects of a philosophy of the absurd: first, the phenomenology of the absurd; and second, the normative implications that follow from an inescapable absurdity of life. By reading Meursault as unaware of an inescapable demand for meaning, with the accompanying indifference and lack of proactive motivation, we can better understand the experiential landscape that may map onto the absurd landscape itself. This enriches our already-growing understanding of the ‘feeling of the absurd’ (Pölzler Reference Pölzler2018; see also Bowker Reference Bowker2013; Carroll Reference Carroll and Hughes2007; Whistler Reference Whistler, Sharpe, Kałuża and Francev2020). And by highlighting the shortcomings of the life lived by Meursault, we gain insight into the practical question of existential absurdity: if life is absurd, how ought we to live? This paper contributes to answering this question by highlighting how we can, and ought to, come to terms with the need for meaning that is inextricably tied to the absurdity of human life.
2. Meursault’s lucidity
Set in French Algeria, L’Étranger opens with the protagonist Meursault receiving a telegram reporting the death of his mother. After the funeral, he spends the weekend swimming, having sex, and seeing a comedy film with his new (unofficial) girlfriend Marie, before returning to work on Monday. Later that week, he befriends Raymond, a neighbourhood pimp, whom he helps spite one of his sex workers. With Marie, they decide to go to the beach, where one of Raymond’s friends lives with his wife. At the beach, they get into a fight with a group of Arabs, one of whom cuts Raymond with a knife. They withdraw to the friend’s beach house, but Meursault decides to go for another walk.Footnote 3 He runs into the Arab who had cut Raymond. As the knife reflects the scorching sunlight, he shoots the man, using the gun that Raymond had handed him. Pausing for a moment near the motionless body, he fires four more shots, ‘as if knocking four times on the door of unhappiness [comme quatre coups brefs que je frappais sur la porte du malheur]’ (E: 93).
The second half of the novella commences after Meursault’s arrest. After being interrogated and spending some idle time in jail, he is tried for his actions. What is at the heart of his sentence, however, is not the murder of an Arab (which would be surprising under French colonial rule) but the way in which he comported himself more generally, especially in response to his mother’s death. Seemingly indifferent towards the conventional norms of a funeral and society at large, he is sentenced to death. While he awaits his execution, a chaplain visits him. He fervently resists the redemptive path offered by the chaplain, proclaiming the supreme value of this life rather than the next.
The novella is closely related to The Myth of Sisyphus (1942; originally published in French as Le Mythe de Sisyphe), which was published in the same year.Footnote 4 Along with his two plays Caligula and Le Malentendu (translated into English as The Misunderstanding or Cross Purpose), these works make up what Camus considered his first ‘series’ of works, bound together thematically by the absurd (CII: 158).Footnote 5 Not only were the novella and the philosophical essay both published shortly after one another, they were initially intended to be published within a single volume. Hence, Camus must have considered the contents of the two to be deeply complementary. At the same time, we should avoid assuming key characters in Camus’s literary works to be mouthpieces for his own views – a point that becomes increasingly important throughout this paper. This possible disparity between an author and their characters makes our exegetical question all the more interesting: if the absurd is central to The Myth of Sisyphus, what role does it play within L’Étranger?
In The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus stresses the importance of looking at the ways in which the absurd manifests in experience, rather than establishing the absurdity of life a priori.Footnote 6 The absurd can be felt, for instance, when life becomes too repetitive: ‘Rising, tram, four hours in the office or factory, meal, tram, four hours of work, meal, sleep and Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, according to the same rhythm […] But one day the “why” arises and everything begins in that weariness tinged with amazement’ (MS: 19). Drawing on experiences like this, Camus offers ‘an enumeration of the feelings that may admit of the absurd’ (MS: 20; original emphasis).
Camus is quick to add that these concrete experiences of absurdity reveal a deeper absurdity that governs human life as such. At the heart of life’s absurdity, there is ‘that divorce between the mind that desires and the world that disappoints’ (MS: 50). The absurdity of life, then, entails an existential lack: life is governed by a quest for something that cannot be attained. More precisely, Camus’s notion of the absurd centres on the lack of objective meaning to life (see for example MS: 51), which can be either supernatural (e.g. God-given) or natural (e.g. inscribed in the essence of being human, as the Aristotelian naturalist would have it).Footnote 7 This is a limited form of nihilism (MS: 7): an insistence on the absence of objective meaning, which leaves room for other (e.g. subjective) forms of meaning.Footnote 8 Put in analytic language, nothing matters simpliciter, though a great many things may be of personal significance to people – i.e. matter to them.
Throughout the essay, Camus criticizes various philosophers (and even literary authors such as Franz Kafka) for failing to stay true to the absurdity that was their starting point. This he calls ‘philosophical suicide’ (MS: 32), an aberration he ascribes to Karl Jaspers, Lev Shestov, Søren Kierkegaard, and Edmund Husserl, among others. Their supposedly shaky common ground lies in the tendency to suggest a way to overcome that existential lack: ‘Through an odd reasoning, starting out from the absurd over the ruins of reason, in a closed universe limited to the human, they deify what crushes them and find reason to hope in what impoverishes them’ (MS: 35). Since ‘the absurd is the contrary of hope’ (MS: 37), we ought to remain lucidly aware of the existential lack and its ineliminability from human life. This is one of the core normative commitments of Camus’s absurdism.
Within L’Étranger, the absurd becomes apparent in the final section of the novella, when Meursault is awaiting his execution and has had enough of the chaplain’s insistence on otherworldly salvation. In a passionate outburst, he exclaims that nothing really matters: ‘What did they matter, the death of others, the love for a mother, what did his God matter, the lives and destinies people choose[?] [Que m’importaient la mort des autres, l’amour d’une mère, que m’importaient son Dieu, les vies qu’on choisit, les destins qu’on élit]’ (E: 181). This is not an epiphany, however, because (if we take Meursault’s word for it) he had known this all along: ‘I had been right, I was still right, I was always right [J’avais eu raison, j’avais encore raison, j’avais toujours raison]’ (E: 181).
If we go back to the first half of the book, we can see the truth in this retrospective proclamation: Meursault had been deeply aware of this lack of meaning from the very beginning of the story. His lucidity is perhaps most evident in his romantic relationship with Marie. On multiple occasions, she asks whether he loves her, to which he replies that that doesn’t mean anything.Footnote 9 The second time, she also asks if he wants to marry her. He responds, again, that it doesn’t mean anything, but that they can if she wants to.Footnote 10 Surprised by his nonchalant acquiescence, she insists that marriage is a serious thing. His response is simple: ‘No.’ (E: 67) Similar expressions of meaninglessness and his accompanying attitude of indifference pervade the novella from cover to cover, thereby adding credence to the idea that Meursault subscribes to a general lack of meaning.Footnote 11
There is even evidence that Meursault’s awareness of an existential lack goes back into a past far before the beginning of the story. When his boss offers him a promotion, which would require him to relocate to Paris, he declines (E: 66). ‘When I was a student,’ he tells the reader, ‘I had a lot of ambitions of this kind. But when I had to abandon my studies, I quickly understood that none of this had any real importance [Quand j’étais étudiant, j’avais beaucoup d’ambitions de ce genre. Mais quand j’ai dû abandonner mes études, j’ai très vite compris que tout cela était sans importance réelle].’ (E: 67) This suggests that his belief in the existential lack is already deeply embedded in his worldview at the beginning of the novella. None of the events within the timeline of the novella, that is, sparked a new awareness of this meaninglessness; it was already there.
It also suggests that there was a time, even further into the past, when he was unaware of the existential lack. During his studies, he seems to have thought (or at least entertained the possibility) that his life could be meaningful in the way he later deemed unattainable. It follows that his existential awareness is not innate, whether it be as a personal essence or as the essence of being human. Still, this awareness is already deeply ingrained in Meursault when the story begins, setting the stage for the narrative to unfold.Footnote 12
Beyond the realm of speech, his actions also express a belief in the existential lack. For example, at his mother’s coffin, he lights a cigarette in a state of indifference to what is considered proper (E: 17); and while the vigil would conventionally require him to watch over his mother’s coffin, he does nothing to prevent himself from falling asleep (E: 18). He also helps Raymond spite one of his sex workers, which runs counter to moral custom, and motivates his actions by pointing to a lack of reasons not to help him (E: 52). And finally, Meursault ends up shooting a man for what can scarcely count as a reason: because of the sun (E: 91–93).Footnote 13 This highlights Meursault’s belief that there are no objective reasons for action, though this of course leaves room for reasons that derive from one’s subjective concerns. In the absence of objective meaning, anything without significance to Meursault is therefore utterly meaningless. Thus, both his words and his actions express a belief in an existential lack.
This existential awareness becomes even more salient when compared to almost everyone else’s belief in objective meaning. The prosecutor and Meursault’s own attorney both rely to a large extent on a moral reality that applies universally, whether it be based on interpersonal duties or on the allegiance required of a subject to the state. The chaplain, meanwhile, relies on religious commands as a way of grounding Meursault’s guilt. Earlier on, Marie’s insistence not only on romantic ideals but also on the reprehensibility of (misogynistic) violence (E: 58) further allows Meursault’s rejection of objective normativity to come to the fore.
This stark contrast is key to understanding what Camus has called Meursault’s ‘refus[al] to lie’ (PS: 336). Despite the pressure of the mainstream, he refuses to succumb to assertions that are incompatible with his belief in the existential lack. This is, Camus observes, simultaneously what renders him relatively praiseworthy within his social context and why he is so ruthlessly persecuted by the state. In a direct reference to Christ himself (contrasting his own interpretation of Meursault with that of the examining magistrate, who called him ‘monsieur l’Antéchrist’ (E: 109)), Camus considers Meursault a martyr – ‘a man who, without any heroics, agrees to die for the truth’ (PS: 337). This is not a positive truth, however, such as a rival ethical theory, but ‘a negative one’ (PS: 336). This negative characterization adds further plausibility to the idea that Meursault’s key virtue is his knowledge of the existential lack, and his living his life in accordance with it.Footnote 14
3. Meursault’s unawareness of the demand
It is clear, then, that Meursault believes in the existential lack that co-constitutes an absurd condition: the absence of objective meaning. It is in this respect that Thody is correct in thinking that the protagonist is profoundly aware of the absurd – that is, of its negative component. What is not clear at this juncture is whether Meursault at any point exhibits awareness of the existential demand which, along with the existential lack, constitutes the absurd in its entirety. If we have reason to ‘remain faithful to the commandments of the absurd’ (MS: 37), then we ought to remain faithful, too, to the normative component of the absurd – the existential demand. This dual faithfulness, to both the existential lack and the existential demand, is why Camus tries to keep the reader from ‘suppressing the absurd by denying one of the terms of its equation’ (MS: 50).
In much of L’Étranger, we do see not only a belief in the existential lack but also a widespread desire for things to be different. Meursault notices the meaninglessness of things in light of other people’s expectations that they should mean something. It is not his own desire, however, that guides his perception of a lack, but other people’s insistence on some positively present fact (which Meursault finds puzzling throughout much of the novella). Contrary to those around him, he himself seems to care little for the kind of meaning that he takes to be absent from human life.
Meursault’s stance therefore seems to be expressive not of a demand for meaning, but of the very absence thereof. In his indifference, he seems to have given up the existential demand. As a result, Thody is not quite correct to insist on Meursault’s awareness of the absurd. Certainly, his entire being has become animated with the belief in the absence of objective meaning, but Meursault fails to affirm the existential demand, affirming only the negative component of the absurd.Footnote 15 The story, therefore, does not start out with a true absurdist; Meursault’s absurdism is incomplete.
It should be noted, however, that Meursault’s indifference is not total. To name a few examples, he shows signs of agitation under the yoke of the Algerian heat, both during the funeral procession (E: 22–30) and when he is on the beach just before killing the Arab (E: 89–93), he hates overly humid towels (E: 41–42), he expresses a wish that his mother hadn’t died (E: 100), and he exhibits a great deal of sympathy towards his neighbour Salamano when he has lost his dog (E: 73). And while he doesn’t care for declaring his love to Marie and marrying her, he clearly shows affection, enjoys spending time with her, and is committed to seeing her again (E: 32–34, 55–57, 80–81).
Thus, his characteristic indifference is limited to the question of objective meaning and the many answers that people have for it. He does not care for the conventions at a funeral, the institution of marriage, or anything else that parades as an objective source of meaning.
One may counter this characterization of Meursault’s indifference by saying that, far from being indifferent about the lack of objective meaning, Meursault is deeply passionate about it. Camus himself has said as much: ‘Far from being bereft of all feeling, he is animated by a passion that is deep because it is stubborn, a passion for the absolute and for truth’ (PS: 336). This passion, however, is not the passionate longing for things to matter objectively, but the passion of his belief in the absence of objective meaning. Hence, his truth ‘is still a negative one’ (PS: 336). He fervently resists other people’s insistence on objective meaning, because he believes, as befits an absurdist, that they are wrong. Because his indifference is not total, his passion for the truth of the existential lack is compatible with his failure to acknowledge the existential demand – i.e. that things ought to be otherwise.
This brings out an important difference with a reading presented by Jonathan Webber (Reference Webber2018: 26–27), who argues that the existential demand is expressed in Meursault’s insistence on the importance of a lack of meaning.Footnote 16 Two elements of this interpretation are, in my mind, both accurate and important. First, it is true that Meursault insists on the importance of a lack of meaning. When he responds to Marie’s proposal by saying that marriage doesn’t mean anything, this is exactly what he does: he insists on the importance of meaninglessness. This is not incoherent (as Nagel Reference Nagel1971 and Hare Reference Hare1972 have supposed it is), because the value that grounds that importance is personal significance, not objective meaning. While Meursault rejects the existence of objective meaning, his worldview does allow for personal significance. Second, it is true that this insistence expresses a demand. When he insists that life is meaningless in some way, he is animated by a demand for acknowledging this negative state-of-affairs. However, this is not the existential demand, but a demand to stay true to the existential lack. It is important to Meursault, either on the basis of an abstract ideal of truthfulness or on the basis of the practical benefits of living life in a truthful way, that one live life in accordance with this existential lack. Thus, Meursault’s insistence on the truth of the existential lack does not suggest that he is thereby animated by a desire for life to be different.
Still, in heralding the lack of objective meaning in life, Meursault offers a sobering antidote to the widespread belief in objective meaning. This makes him a martyr of the negative component of the absurd – a truly admirable characteristic on the absurdist worldview. This existential virtue can coexist with an existential shortcoming, which is the lack of existential desire that is revealed by his indifference.
4. The discovery of the demand
Should we say, then, that Meursault remains unaware of the full meaning of the absurd up to his very death? Or does he begin to recognize, at some point or other, that he is bound to an existential demand that cannot simply be relinquished? Here, I argue that his passionate outburst near the end of the novella reveals a transformative insight regarding the existential demand. Albeit too little too late, he becomes aware of the demand for meaning.
Part of this passionate outburst in response to the chaplain’s insistence on salvation is, of course, the aforementioned passion for the truth of the existential lack. This had led Thody to suppose that the cathartic climax of the novella simply serves to make explicit the absurdist worldview already endorsed from the very beginning of the story. But if this were true, how could we make sense of Meursault’s claim that, then and there, he ‘opened [him]self up for the first time to the tender indifference of the world [je m’ouvrais pour la première fois à la tendre indifférence du monde]’ (E: 183–184)?
Thus, I submit that there is another dimension to Meursault’s final passion: for the first time, he comes to lament the absurdity of life, which is expressive of a demand for things to be different – the normative component of the absurd. This can be seen, for instance, in the moment he sympathizes with his mother’s attitude to life during her time at the retirement home. After his fury towards the chaplain has settled, he thinks of maman’s decision to get engaged in the final stage of her life. He tells us he understands why she wanted to start again. ‘So close to death [Si près de la mort],’ he says, ‘maman must have felt liberated and ready to live her life all over again [maman devait s’y sentir libérée et prête à tout revivre].’ Now, when he himself faces death, he shares this desire. ‘And I, too, was ready to live my life all over again [Et moi aussi, je me suis senti prêt à tout revivre]’ (E: 183). What is notable, moreover, is the omission of that feeling of liberation when talking about his own plight. He is ready to begin anew, but he is alone in a prison cell awaiting his execution. There is no escape, not even a respite in the sublunary joys of sensory life, which forces upon him the need to shake one’s fist at the world – that is, to adopt a negatively evaluative attitude. And so, by seeing the absurd for the tragedy that it is, he has lost the indifference that has guided his encounter with the absurd up to this point.
This brings out a second point of departure from Webber’s (Reference Webber2018) interpretation.Footnote 17 His reading is likewise motivated by the fact that those who have interpreted Meursault’s passionate outburst as nothing more than an animated restatement of his belief in the existential lack have difficulty explaining why Meursault reports having opened himself up, for the first time, to the aforementioned ‘indifference of the world’ (E: 183–184). Due to the fact that Webber interprets Meursault’s constant insistence on the existential lack as an expression of the existential demand, he cannot explain the protagonist’s transformation as an expression of this existential demand. For, on Webber’s reading, there would be nothing new about this expression of the existential demand. Instead, he suggests that Meursault has discovered that ‘there is a source of ethical value despite the lack of intelligibility that confronts our demands for meaning’ (Webber, Reference Webber2018: 28). This source can be found in a naturalistic ethics, according to Webber: ‘Ethical value has its source, he comes to realize, in the emotional concern for other people that arises naturally for everyone else, but which he lacks’ (p. 28). While there is no mention of this naturalistic ethics in The Myth of Sisyphus, Webber finds evidence for its presence in the novella in Camus’s later work – most notably The Rebel (1951; originally published in French as L’Homme Révolté).
By bringing in an interpretation of Camus’s ethical views as developed in his later work, Webber steps outside of the philosophical logic of the novella itself. In so doing, Webber takes on two argumentative burdens. First, it would have to be shown that there is continuity between Camus’s early work and the more clearly ethical work later in his career. Second, it would have to be shown that it is at least prima facie coherent to suppose that Camus’s meaninglessness in The Myth of Sisyphus can coexist with an essentialist ethics based on natural feelings of fraternity. Can we still speak of the meaninglessness of life if we can find guidance in fraternal feelings?
My reading has explanatory advantage over Webber’s reading, not just because it doesn’t take on these particular burdens, but because it takes on no external burdens at all. Rather, it stays with the evidence within the novella in dialogue only with Camus’s philosophy of the absurd, which many (including Webber) have taken to be fundamental to L’Étranger. Within my interpretation of the novella, the transformative insight toward the end of the novella can be explained fully by the internal logic of the absurd – as a moment in which Meursault finally comes to acknowledge the existential demand.
5. The concealment of the demand
We have explained how the existential demand enters Meursault’s consciousness towards the end of the novella. But what explains his initial position? Why, if for any reason at all, has he failed to acknowledge the existential demand that is (according to Camus) part and parcel of being human?
One may be inclined to suppose that Meursault had genuinely lacked the desire for things to matter in the relevant way. Only when he is imprisoned and faced with death does he, on this reading, begin to wish for life to be different. The problem with this interpretation, however, is that it would render Meursault an exceptional (if not impossible) human being given Camus’s account of human life. For, Camus deems the existential demand inescapable.Footnote 18 And besides, the existential demand had previously been present in Meursault, before the start of the novella. Recall that, when he was a student, he had the ambition to climb the socioeconomic ladder, before realizing that none of that really mattered. In the wider context of the narrative, this insight into the meaninglessness of his career aspirations is clearly existential: he had not only discovered that those aspirations were of no significance to him personally, but also, and more importantly, that they had no objective significance. This goes to show that he had in fact embraced the ideal of objective meaning, naïvely, before taking his first step towards the truths of the Camusian absurdity of life – recognizing the absence of objective meaning.
Thus, Meursault appears to undergo a dialectical development through the composite truths of the absurd. First, he is animated by naïve desire, as he basks in the false belief that things really do matter objectively. This phase precedes the temporal setting of the novella. Then, when he comes to recognize the existential lack that is inherent in human existence, his attitude towards life as a whole becomes governed by an insistence on the absence of objective meaning. This attitude has become deeply embedded in his worldview when the novella starts. And then, in the third phase of Meursault’s development towards the full meaning of absurdism, the desire of the first phase and the awareness of the existential lack are synthesized into a conscious tension between desire and reality. He has recovered his desire, but it is no longer naïve. Thus, he ultimately progresses beyond a focus on the existential lack alone.
But what explains his inability to pass through the second phase quite rapidly? Why does he not immediately recognize the persistent role of the existential demand? The simplest explanation is oversight: perhaps he has forgotten about the importance of having that kind of meaning that he had previously assigned to his life and its constituent parts. I can forget, for example, that I continue to want to buy a new car when other things occupy me. But the normative component of the absurd is not just any demand; it is, according to Camus, fundamental to human life. As such, it is likely to be continually frustrated by the awareness of the existential lack. Besides, one’s recurring insistence that there still is not a new car would make it very difficult to remain unaware of a demand for a new car; and so it is with Meursault, who keeps insisting on the absence of objective meaning. As a result, it is improbable that the demand would go unnoticed throughout all of his observations about things failing to matter.
The best explanation, therefore, is that the existential demand is kept at bay as a result of deliberate choice. This seems, moreover, most in sync with Camus’s suggestion that Meursault represents a response to the absurd (and not just a response to the existential lack). But why? If recognition of the existential demand is indispensable to a truthful way of living under absurdity, what reasons could Meursault have had to keep it at bay?
The most obvious answer lies in the very nature of desire-frustration. Because the absurd consists in a demand that cannot be realized, it is inherently uncomfortable. Thus, there is prudential reason to regulate the negative emotions that accompany the absurd. One form of emotion regulation that Meursault systematically employs is to emphasize the lack of objective meaning, which allows him to cognitively reappraise the absurd in a way that makes it seem less tragic. It is as though Meursault seeks refuge from the tragedy of the absurd in the Nagelian thought that it doesn’t matter that nothing matters (Nagel Reference Nagel1971: 727). In so doing, however, he suppresses the way in which it does matter, non-objectively, namely in relation to his desire for things to matter objectively. Thus, he tries to insulate himself from the frustration that is part and parcel of the absurd.
There is another reason to keep awareness of the existential demand at bay. If our desire for meaning gives us reasons to pursue a life which is, if not objectively meaningful, then at least meaningful relative to our own subjectivity, then this path is both attractive and daunting. It is attractive because it offers some meaning, and thus the sense of fulfilment that is bound to accompany a meaningful life, but it is daunting because it comes with a high degree of responsibility. If meaning depends on us, then we have only ourselves to blame for a failure to acquire a meaningful life. This is a source of existential anxiety, and it can understandably keep one from taking action.
6. The lost opportunity of relative meaning
We have already detailed the relationship between the existential demand and the need to adopt a negatively evaluative attitude towards the existential lack. There is, in addition to this reason to lament, another requirement that is intricately related to the absurd, one that is not just attitude-guiding but decidedly action-guiding. This is the need to pursue meaning of the non-objective variety.
When I spoke of the negative belief that Camus takes to be a driving force for the protagonist of L’Étranger, I left out an observation that now becomes significant. In the preface to L’Étranger, Camus suggests that awareness of the lack of objective meaning not only stays true to reality but also provides the condition for a genuinely meaningful life: ‘without it [the negative belief] no conquest of ourselves or of the world will ever be possible’ (PS: 336). Outside of the narrative context of L’Étranger, the need to progress from recognizing the absurd to a proactive pursuit of meaning becomes even clearer: ‘Accepting the absurdity of everything around us is one step, a necessary experience: it should not become a dead end. It arouses a revolt that can become fruitful. An analysis of the idea of revolt could help us to discover ideas capable of restoring a relative meaning to existence, although a meaning that would always be in danger.’ (NE: 346) What, then, does Camus consider a viable candidate for relative meaning?
Meursault seems to live a rather hedonistic or desire-driven life. On a reading offered by Champigny (Reference Champigny1959), his core project is the satisfaction of his immediate desires, most notably those of the sensual variety.Footnote 19 He spends a lot of time at the beach, swimming, having sex, and generally enjoying himself. As Søren Kierkegaard had observed a century before Camus, this ‘aesthetic’ way of life continually risks collapsing into boredom, since without a higher-order project one is constantly in search of the next thrill.Footnote 20 Meursault, likewise, falls into ennui when deprived of a stimulating environment. This is, moreover, why he hates Sundays (E: 34).
In order to maintain the motivational force of immediate desires, the aesthete must live, as far as possible, in the here-and-now. As soon as one takes a step back and reflects on the right course of action, one risks devolving into dejection, unable to do anything at all. Hence, the immediacy endorsed in an aesthetic way of life is aided by a lack of comprehensive reflection.
One might counter that Meursault does reflect. And this is true. His behaviour sometimes reveals as much, such as the embarrassment that seems impossible without reflection (E: 14), and so do his pensive observations. For instance, while he suffers in the sweltering heat, he muses that his mother must have experienced evenings as a melancholy truce (E: 27). Furthermore, he sometimes reports his process of deliberation in the very midst of it: ‘I craved a smoke. But I hesitated because I didn’t know whether I could do that in front of maman. I reflected, it didn’t matter [J’ai eu alors envie de fumer. Mais j’ai hésité parce que je ne savais pas si je pouvais le faire devant maman. J’ai réfléchi, cela n’avait aucune importance].’ (E: 17, see also 50). And so he smokes. All this points to some degree of reflectivity, in opposition to suggestions made to the contrary (e.g. Solomon, Reference Solomon2006: 11–33; Sherman, Reference Sherman2008: 60–80).
Therefore, his lack of reflection must be qualified. Meursault deliberates, gives rich phenomenological descriptions, and reflects on the aesthetic properties of the things around him (Webber, Reference Webber2018: 23). What he does not do, however, is reflect on the overarching structures within his life: his life-goals, the quality of his character, and what he ought to commit himself to beyond the here-and-now. It is in this sense that Meursault has adopted a rather unreflective attitude.Footnote 21
It’s not as if he has never learned to reflect on his life in this way. Recall that he used to be ambitious, but that he discovered later on that his ambitions weren’t really important (E: 67). It seems, therefore, to have been a deliberate choice to abandon large-scale normative deliberation and live in the here-and-now (to the extent that this is possible). The motivation behind this might well be akin to those already mentioned: a rather unreflective attitude helps him keep frustration and anxiety at bay.
With this notion of reduced reflectivity in mind, we can make sense of the fact that Camus reported that his intention behind L’Étranger was ‘to describe a man with no apparent awareness of his existence’ (NE: 348). That is to say, Meursault never reflects on his life as a larger whole, nor on the projects that form its central parts. This attests to the ethic of living in the here-and-now that is associated with aestheticism: a life built on impulse. Thus, his life lacks a unifying system of guidelines, which is why it comes across as fragmented.Footnote 22 This fragmentation is reflected even in the novella’s grammatical structure, using relatively short sentences to highlight the way in which events are perceived in a disjointed fashion.
Now, importantly, Camus does not wish to recommend this way of life. For if we were to respond to the absurd in this way, then ‘we would end up with a universe of automatons and instincts,’ which according to Camus ‘would be a considerable impoverishment’ (NE: 348). And given the self-destructive fate that Camus had envisioned for Meursault, aestheticism appears to be far removed from what Camus had in mind as the absurdist ideal. What, then, is the alternative?
In The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus emphasizes that although ‘[e]verything begins with lucid indifference’ (MS: 87), this indifference is only the initial phase towards proactive commitment. After being stung into indifference by an awareness of the existential lack, we can proceed towards a life of creation: ‘In the time of the absurd reasoning, creation follows indifference’ (MS: 88).Footnote 23 And this, not the promise of a life after death, is the highest form of salvation that the absurdity of life affords. Hence, ‘the absurd joy par excellence is creation’ (MS: 86). According to Camus, the artist is the epitome of the absurdist ethos of creation, but the creative spirit is not exclusive to those who create works of art in the conventional meaning of the term. As long as someone is committed to leaving their mark on a world without inherent significance, they will live life creatively in the spirit intended by Camus (MS: 89). Rather than simply living a passive life of bodily pleasures, the true absurdist creates a life, which requires committing oneself to an overarching project.Footnote 24 This can be anything, from chasing academic success (defining success, of course, according to one’s own framework of personal significance rather than conventional norms) to starting a family with a kindhearted woman like Marie. In fact, Meursault’s sympathy for his late mother’s desire to marry (E: 183) suggests a move away from his earlier indifference towards marrying Marie. In hindsight, he seems to entertain the thought that he should have pursued a romantic relationship worthy of marriage. Still, while he entertains the thought of marriage, it is not at all obvious that he is anywhere near desiring to get married. The key insight, therefore, has less to do with the revaluation of specific sources of meaning (such as marriage) than with the importance of seeking meaning – any kind of meaning – proactively. For Camus, this is what is involved in revolt: one makes meaningful what is inherently meaningless.Footnote 25
When imprisoned, however, Meursault has squandered his potential for meaning. Soon, the executioner will irrevocably terminate his agency; thus, he will be deprived of the ability to fight the meaninglessness of the universe – deprived, that is, from revolt. This constitutes his guilt – which is not a moral guilt but an existential one. By disavowing that existential demand that could have guided him towards a meaningful life, until it is too late, he has rendered himself complicitous with the indifference of the universe. Now, there is no chance of redeeming himself, which is why Meursault says that he has been ‘emptied of hope [vidé d’espoir]’ (E: 183). Despite being ‘purged of [the] evil [purgé du mal]’ that lies at the root of his guilt (neglecting the existential demand), he can no longer save his life from meaninglessness. This makes his personal tragedy, already a particular case of the more general tragedy of life, even more tragic.Footnote 26
7. Conclusion
In short, Meursault’s story is simultaneously one of martyrdom and a cautionary tale.Footnote 27 If one only recognizes the negative component of the absurd, while disattending to the existential demand, one risks neglecting the need to cultivate an attitude that is both fitting towards the absurd and fruitful in living of one’s life. We can admire Meursault for going against the grain, as he heralds the negative truth of the absurd vis-à-vis an army of believers, but at the same time we should recognize his folly and avoid following in his footsteps.
By looking at the intricacies of Meursault’s failure to acknowledge the demand for meaning, and its subsequent uncovering, we have learned a few lessons about the phenomenology of the absurd – an area of study that has recently gained traction (e.g. Carroll Reference Carroll and Hughes2007; Bowker Reference Bowker2013; Pölzler Reference Pölzler2018; Whistler Reference Whistler, Sharpe, Kałuża and Francev2020). Since the feeling of the absurd is inherently uncomfortable, we can be tempted towards trying to ignore the existential demand once we have become aware of the existential lack. Refusing to reflect on one’s life as a whole, moreover, can aid this way of dealing with the absurd. But if life is truly absurd, being governed by a fundamental demand for things to be different, then this project is destined to fail. For, the existential demand will continue to exist even if we try to suppress it. The normative component cannot be eliminated but can only be pushed out of awareness; and so, it has not been robbed of its potential to impact the psyche. Meanwhile, the subject has hereby given up the means by which to manage it properly, which exacerbates the problem, both in the realm of feeling and in the realm of action.
How, then, should we live with the absurd, in full recognition of the normative component of the absurd? One part of the answer is rather straightforward: because the absurd is a lamentable aspect of life, we ought to lament it. This does not mean wallowing in misery or falling into patterns of rumination. Rather, it requires us to attend to the feelings that are likely to arise from a confrontation with the absurd.
The other part of the answer is more difficult to formulate. Beyond the emotional integrity that the absurd requires, how ought we to lead our lives in light of the absurd? Pinning down this proactive pursuit remains a difficult puzzle, especially since Meursault has neglected it, but here’s a rough approximation: we ought to compensate for the existential lack while avoiding its direct undoing. If there is no objective meaning (as Camus’s notion of absurdity entails), we should pursue non-objective forms of meaning. This combination of lament and enthusiastic commitment is at the heart of the picture that Camus paints of Sisyphus: on the one hand, he ‘knows the whole extent of his wretched condition’ (MS: 109), which suggests that he does acknowledge the lamentable nature of the absurd; on the other hand, his wretched condition is ‘surmounted by scorn’ (MS: 109). While his fate remains forever lamentable in light of the inescapable demand for meaning, Sisyphus refuses to be crushed by it. Instead, he finds happiness in his wretched condition. It is in this way that ‘[o]ne must imagine Sisyphus happy’ (MS: 110).Footnote 28
Open access
