Trial Motives

After finishing the trial scene in The Stranger, one of the many questions I am left with is: What is really on trial here? We all know and accept that the reason Meursault has been brought to the courtroom is because he has shot and killed a man for no apparent reason. Being in a 20th century French colony, Meursault could easily play this crime off as self defense and get off clean. But he doesn’t because he knows that he killed this man and that he must be punished for his actions. So, instead of avoiding the inevitable, he chooses to accept it and adapt to it in order to move on and focus on the present.

But with Meursault readily able to confess his guiltiness, one would think that this trial would be smooth sailing and predictable. WRONG! This trial doesn’t just stay in the bounds of chapter 6; it actually ranges from chapter 1 to the present. The prosecutor decides to focus on that fact that Meursault didn’t show any emotion at his mother’s funeral, and how, the day after, Meursault decided hang out with “his mistress” and go swimming, watch a comedy movie, and in the end, they went home together. According to the prosecutor, this is not how one should act when their mother has just died. Supposedly one should be crying and mourning days after the funeral, and since Meursault didn’t not do this, his case is not just a normal murder case.

The prosecutor attempts to convince the jury that Meursault’s actions were premeditated because of how he acted at his mother’s funeral. At the service, Meursault showed a lack of emotion, and so days later, he chose to lash out on the Arab, making his crime a first degree murder crime instead of a second degree murder crime, which is a more serious case. Meursault’s lawyer tries to convince the jury that this is preposterous and that Meursault is an “honest man, a steadily employed, tireless worker, loyal to the firm that employed him, well liked, and sympathetic to the misfortunes of others” (104). By doing this, his lawyer is attempting to show that Meursault is a “normal” man. All throughout this trial, the prosecutor has been trying to prove how abnormal and devious Meursault’s actions have been leading up to the crime and the actual crime itself. In a way, Meursault’s crime isn’t the thing on trial; his personality is. Although expressing one’s grief at their own mother’s funeral is a very customary action, there is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to the grieving process. We express our emotions in different ways and the court doesn’t seem to see that. It is obvious that Meursault isn’t a normal man, but that doesn’t mean he is a dangerous man, it just means he’s different.

Although there may be another blog post coming up about how Meursault’s personality can be associated with those of a sociopath, I can definitely see how Meursault is being misjudged by the courts because they don’t understand him. It’s obvious that Meursault can have emotional relationships (ie. Marie), his brain is just wired a little differently than others. Because it is hard to fit someone with this kind of personality into a one-size-fits-all mold, Meursault gives off the impression as strange and, because of recent events, a danger to society.

This is why I find myself conflicted over Meursault’s case. On one hand, I can see the prosecutor’s reasoning behind his opposition to Meursault’s personality, but on the other hand, because we are given Meursault’s perspective throughout the whole book, we can see that this wasn’t a crime of passion. I would say that Meursault needs help (a mental institution or hospital perhaps) more than the death sentence that he was given, but it seems as though the court isn’t willing to let a dangerous murderer live in society any longer, even though the court has yet to fully understand Meursault as a person or what his true motives actually were (a fact that even us as readers don’t even know).