What is a psychopath? According to Psychology Today, a psychopath has a certain number of characteristics such as being uncaring, shallow emotions, irresponsibility, insincere speech, overconfidence, narrowing of attention, selfishness, violence, and inability to plan for the future. Hmm, doesn’t that sound familiar? From the very beginning of The Stranger, Meursault demonstrated at least half of these characteristics yet he seems like a normal guy. He goes about his day without feeling the urge to bear ill will against anyone nor does anyone suspect he’s anything but ordinary. Compared to sociopaths, who are much easier to spot in society, the psychopath has the benefit of being able to be a part of the masses without being detected.
Additionally, psychopaths are much more common in society than you think. In one study, while it is incredibly hard to measure, they estimated that about 1 in 100 people are psychopaths. Before you go and invest in a full armor body suit, it’s important to note that not all psychopaths want to murder you. In fact, much like Meursault, they deal more with management/office work and are people who are just not capable of feeling empathy for other people. They tend to be focused more on themselves and see people as things that are designed to give them pleasure.
Thinking about this, we can easily see this in Meursault's reaction to his mother’s death. While everyone who attended the sigil was crying or showing some degree of grief, Meursault wasn’t really feeling any sadness. Of course, you could say he was in a state of shock, but even the days following the death, he doesn’t think of his mother in a way that follows normal grieving patterns. He instead returns to his normal lifestyle and focuses on what to do with his extra days off from work. Earlier, I mentioned how psychopath’s don’t care about what happens to other people. Well, if we go back to the funeral scene, we can see this in action when Meursault is holding sigil with his mother’s friends. When one of them starts crying, Meursault is annoyed and wishes for them to stop. This is a perfect example of the psychopath's inability to feel empathy for other people.
Furthermore, psychopath’s see people as something to use for pleasure. Soon after his mother’s death, Meursault enters a relationship with Marie. We all know what’s going on there and that there isn’t any real love between the two (maybe with Marie but definitely not Meursault). Meursault makes it extremely clear that he does not love Marie and that she is there for more physical reasons. He repeatedly says that he “wants her”, but that’s really just him using Marie as a source of pleasure.
Even Meursault’s relationship with Raymond highlights Meursault’s psychopathic personality. From how Raymond treats his girlfriend to when Raymond is attacked by an Arab, Meursault doesn’t show any emotion or react in any way. Similarly, the murder of the Arab wasn’t inspired by his thirst for vengeance but rather it just happened. Meursault isn’t sad that it happened but he is upset that his freedom is taken away. A psychopath only cares for him/herself and no one else. While Meursault may seem like a normal guy in a terrible situation, there are several clues that reveal his true nature as a psychopath in the end.
Meursault seems to think that the reason he doesn't care is because he's decided that nothing matters, when really it's the other way around. I agree with this whole post - the fact that Meursault seems totally oblivious as to why people want him to show emotion indicates that there's something fundamentally messed-up about him. The only things that ever seem to motivate him are personal desires - cigarettes, coffee, to be left alone, sex, superficial friendship, etc. He doesn't have any empathy or deep attachments to other people.
ReplyDeleteYou bring up a really interesting point. As we talked about in class today , the court system is corrupt. Maybe the reason the judges focus so much on Mersaults lack of emotion at his mothers funeral than his murder is because they see that he is a psychopath. In light of your post I think the court wants to put him away because he is a psychopath or has a weird way of showing emotions more than they want to send him to jail for murder.
ReplyDeleteMeursault and Raymond both blame chance for Meursault's actions, and I'm not quite sure how much control Meursault had over himself. Psychopaths are often impulsive and lack self-control. I'm not trying to justify his actions, but I'm beginning to think he truly didn't mean to kill the Arab, he just reacted impulsively to a stressful situation. I agree with you that he shows psychopathic tendencies, and now what I'm curious about is whether Meursault was born the way he is or if is he a product of his environment. Did he become the way he is because he felt alienated from his world and became desensitized to the value of human life, death, and love?
ReplyDeleteYeah, I'm now also entirely convinced that it wasn't intentional. He writes the passage as if it weren't even him killing the man. One could argue that he's lying to us about his intentions during the incident, but I honestly don't think he's capable of dishonesty. Otherwise he would probably have been smart enough to argue that he shot the guy out of self defense at his trial.
DeletePsychopath is sort of used as a dirty word, but Mersault demonstrated to me that they can be sympathetic. He has no empathy but he's still mostly a good-intentioned guy. The only question I have about his diagnosis as a psychopath is about his need for the approval of other people (which could contribute in part to his good intentions). Though I'm not sure, I feel like this isn't something to which most psychopaths pay much mind.
I think Meursalt became desensitized over time. I remember the passage where he mentions having ambitions as a young student, and then he entered the workforce and realized that 'it didn't matter.'
ReplyDeleteWe do see that Meursault was apparently more "normal" before when his boss tells him that he used to have ambition. So I do think that Meursault's psychopath tendencies have more to do with his environment than his biology, however biology probably did play a role in this.
ReplyDeleteI completely think that Meursault's tendencies are due to his environment. We don't know much about his life before his mother's death. We do know that he never knew his father. I think this is one of the factors that cuased him to have no emotion as an adult. His mother's death could have also affected him in a way that we can't ever know.
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