Illustrated Study Guide to "The Stranger" by Albert Camus

By Frédéric Lippold

This study guide on the novel "The Stranger" (L'Étranger, Albert Camus), written by a French native, contains around 60 pages (approximately 15,500 words) and over 50 illustrations to help understand the text.

 

The summary of the work is complemented by an in-depth analysis, which goes straight to the point.

This book note is designed to help you interpret the novel in a lively way and in a short time.

 

The following chapters are covered:

- Biography of Albert Camus and explanation of his work (with the description of his three cycles: Absurd, Revolt, Love);

- Presentation and key points of the book (with a discussion of the meaning of the title, and a full list of the main and secondary characters);

- Summary of each of the eleven chapters (14 pages with illustrations);

- Literary aspects of the work;

- Philosophical aspects and other characteristics of the work;

- Suggested additional resources related to the book.

 

NB: the novel written by Albert Camus is not included.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Frédéric Lippold
• Release date: Apr 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201386054

Book preview

Presentation of the Author

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Albert Camus was a philosopher, novelist, playwright, essayist, short story writer, and journalist.

He was born in a vineyard in Mondovi (Algeria) in 1913. His father, Lucien Camus, a farmworker, died in France in 1914 after being hit by shrapnel at the Battle of the Marne.

Albert Camus had European origins: his paternal family came from southern France, while his maternal family descended from Spain. He is, therefore, a descendant of the Pieds-noirs — people originally from Europe who left the continent to reside in Northern Africa[1]. Albert Camus also had an older brother named Lucien.

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After his father’s death, he was raised by his grandmother in Algiers, in the modest working-class neighborhood of Belcourt. The family was poor. Lucien’s and Albert’s mother, Catherine Sintès, a servant of Spanish origin, was partly deaf and illiterate. The two boys had to endure the harshness of their grandmother, Catherine Marie Cardona. Albert Camus illustrates this bittersweet childhood in an unfinished novel he started by the end of his life, entitled The First Man [Le Premier Homme].

Albert Camus lived the pleasures of good weather, swimming on the beach of Tipasa, and soccer matches with the Racing Club Algérois (he was passionate about soccer at 14). This drove the author to nostalgia without turning to the past.

A turning point in his life is related to his fifth-grade teacher, Louis Germain, who seemed like a substitute father; the teacher noticed his intelligence and allowed him to get a scholarship for high school. At this stage Camus came to understand his underprivileged background, and was ashamed of it.

Aged 17, Camus became friends with his philosophy teacher, Jean Grenier, who recognized his exceptional gifts.

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It was at this age that young Albert had worrying symptoms: he spat blood. At the hospital, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis, a potentially fatal lung disease, and had to stop playing soccer. It was a shock: this disease posed a permanent threat to Camus. Touched by death, for no apparent reason, he realizes the fragility of life. He develops a desperate desire to live, without, however, finding meaning in life itself. This also fostered in him, "that freedom of heart, that slight distance from human interests.[2]"

The disease had a decisive impact on the work of Camus: it was a founding trial that influenced his work of reflection and writing.

In addition to Jean Grenier, a relative of Camus, Gustave Acault, would help him and give him a taste of literature.

Albert Camus later became a journalist while leading animated theatre groups and a house of culture. He was also involved in politics. In Algiers, he published Nuptials as well as The Wrong Side and the Right Side.

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In the newspaper, Alger Républicain, he denounced the misery of the local Algerian population and had to leave French Algeria because he was no longer given work. During the Second World War, he edited the newspaper, Combat, a clandestine magazine of the French resistance.

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After the war, Albert Camus continued his work revolving around the Absurd and the revolt of human beings unable to find any meaning in life. He also spoke of the joys of life, which were often found in simple things.

In 1957, Camus received the Nobel Prize for Literature, which he dedicated to his former teacher.

His work is already important: About twenty workpieces and many articles and prefaces of his are published.

While many works were still expected from him, he died suddenly in 1960 at 46 years of age, in Villeblevin, following a car accident.

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Presentation and key points of the work

The Stranger / The Outsider (original title: L’Étranger) is the first novel written by Albert Camus, published in 1942.

It was written from the summer of 1939 (as seen from Camus' notebooks) until May 1940.

This work is part of the cycle of the Absurd, along with the essay The Myth of Sisyphus (1942), and the play Caligula (1944); Albert Camus calls these works "the three Absurds" in his Notebooks (February 21, 1941).

The Stranger tells the story of an ordinary office worker, Meursault, who will meet a tragic fate; the story begins with the death of his mother and ends with his death sentence.

This novel symbolizes the man lost in the absurdity’s face of life. The principal character has a detached attitude and accepts the events he undergoes. He is also a man without filter, who tells the truth and cannot understand the social and moral conventions.

Among the themes