During Meursault’s trial, regarding the murder and the
sequence of events leading up to it, Celeste says, “The way I see it, it’s just
bad luck. Everybody knows what bad luck
is. It leaves you defenseless. And there it is!” I think that this statement can be considered
to be accurate or inaccurate depending on the perspective that you adopt.
First I’ll cover Celeste’s viewpoint. He removes Meursault’s responsibility from
the equation. He is implicitly saying
that the whole situation is not Meursault’s fault. Although this might seem to be a bit biased –
Celeste considers Meursault to be his friend, after all (even to the extent
that he says he doesn’t care excessively about whether Meursault has kept up
with the bills he runs up at the diner) – I think there is definitely some
merit to this statement. The whole
entire mess sort of starts when Meursault goes to get dinner with Raymond. After that, feeling a sort of bond with
Raymond, he decides to support Raymond when he goes to get
revenge against his mistress for supposedly cheating. After
that, he ends up getting drunk, and the sun irritates him to the point that he squeezes
the gun too hard and pulls the trigger.
When you look at it like that, it seems like Meursault is just the victim
of some larger force here, just stumbling from misfortune to misfortune.
Of course, you could look at it differently, saying that it
is Meursault’s fault for just going with the flow and maintaining his impartial
attitude, and that would also be valid.
If Meursault wasn’t like this, even if Raymond still approached him, he
would be able to recognize how shady Raymond is and refrain from helping him
accomplish any of his shady goals. Everything
could potentially have stopped after the dinner. But that would change a major aspect of
Meursault’s character to the extent that we probably wouldn’t recognize him
afterwards.
Personally, although I don’t condone that Meursault killed
the Arab, I think that he did get unlucky.
Given his personality, Meursault seems to be sort of vulnerable to Raymond's brand of coercion. Had he not become
Raymond’s “pal”, he would likely have gone on with his normal daily life. What do you think? Which viewpoint do you think makes the most
sense?
I think that, just based on the narration of the shooting, I would say that Meursault doesn't really have any intention of killing the Arab. However, I think that it is not just bad luck for Meursault to have killed the Arab because I feel like it was still his fault for getting involved with Raymond in the first place.
ReplyDeleteI think it really was bad luck that made Meursault shoot the Arab. You can tell that he really had no intention considering how he stopped Raymond from shooting and his indifference to the Arab. It was factors out of his control that made him shoot, the sun and the fact that the Arab returned to pool.
ReplyDeleteI do not think that Meursault's situation was bad luck. Its not like Meursault was accidentally pointing the gun at the Arab and he accidentally pulled the trigger. Instead he did all this knowingly. Also if Meursault wanted to stay alive, the lawyer said that his case was an easy win if he said the right things. There was definitely some bad luck and bad timing, but Meursault is definitely to blame.
ReplyDeleteI think it was pretty bad luck, from Meursault's perspective. Obviously, if you were a normal member of society it's easy to see his murder as senseless and wicked. However, the factors all unfortunately lined up; the sun's temperature that day, the position of the gun, the glint of light off of the knife, how the Arabs were in the way of Raymond, and all of that culminated in the murder. Of course, Meursault could have just declined to write the letter, but his inclination to please others is also part of his disposition, just as his sensitivity to the sun is part of his natural character.
ReplyDeleteWhile discussing this, it seemed unreasonable to attribute all of these events to something like luck. However, your description of Mersault pulling the trigger and how he got involved, it all seems like a chain of unfortunate events that all sort of led to each other logically. From an overarching standpoint, this whole thing seems very unlikely, but looking at each action maybe it was all really just bad luck.
ReplyDeleteI think it's a healthy mix of bad luck and atrocious decision making. It was "bad luck" from his perspective when he pulled the trigger and him getting involved in the dispute. However, if it wasn't for his constant indecisiveness, he would never have been in that position in the first place. In that sense it is his "fault" as much as he believes it was bad luck.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that he got mixed up with Raymond in the first place could just be bad luck. Since Meursault just goes with whatever is happening it is unfortunate he got mixed up with Raymond. However when he shot the Arab I don't think that was just bad luck. Earlier he had the thought that he had the choice to shoot or not and he chose to shoot.
ReplyDeleteI think it is 'bad luck', but that it is ultimately derived from Meusault's very unique perception of reality, particularly his impassivity. I think that everything followed a logical order, completely based on Meursault's personality and his environment, a combination that at it's root could be considered 'bad luck'.
ReplyDelete