The Stranger by Albert Camus

Nobody likes Meursault. He works as a clerk in a nondescript job. His mother dies at a home for the indigent, and he complains that he never went to see her because it was a waste of his Sunday if he did. He sent her away because he didn't have anything to say to her, anyway. Plus, he didn't like the way she looked at him. This year I asked students to create a timeline for the way Meursault did spend his Sunday. It went something like this:

10 a.m. - Wake up and notice the girl from the night before is gone. Stay in bed and smoke until noon.

Noon - Get up and wander around the apartment. Cut out an advertisement and put it in a scrapbook of meaningless, random things.

2 p.m. or so - Sit on the balcony. Smoke and watch other people doing stuff and going places.

4 p.m. or so - Reverse the direction of the chair and sit on it backwards for a change. Smoke.

...and so on.

No wonder nobody likes Meursault. He is a boring guy. However, the hostility comes from my students' recognition that Meursault is so much less of a human being than he could be/should be/ought to be. They insist there is some level of emotion present which Meursault is suppressing, or they imagine there is some [fictional] trauma in his past that leads to his [subconscious] rejection of Maman. And, as the trial demonstrates, you can kill an Arab in cold blood, but the crime for which society is going to make you pay the ultimate price is the crime of not loving your mother! (Next year I will suggest students create a Mother's Day card from Meursault to his mother: To Mother. Today is Mother's Day. You are my mother. It doesn't matter to me one way or the other. Sincerely, your son.)

Half of the students hate the concepts of Existentialism, and half of them think Existentialism is the truest explanation of the (non)meaning of life they have ever heard. They feel this especially when Meursault wakes up in his prison cell, where he is waiting to die, trying to bargain with the universe for his life, yet still standing up to society's institutions of authority and convention. Meursault has a shouting match with the priest who visits in an attempt to save Meursault's soul, and even though about half the students think he is bonkers at this point, they all respect his decision--finally, a decision!--to stand up for something in his life, even if it is the right to stand up for believing in nothing.

Something about my life this year has allowed me to relax into the "gentle indifference of the universe," as Meursault puts it, in a new way, and I am grateful that Camus' Meursault woke up to life in time for me to receive his wisdom. I believe in so much and have so many chances to send my voice out into the stars, not the least through my students. Thank you to Camus and to the tenth-graders in room 216.