That Meursualt is able to choose, that he is aware of this ability, is what defines his revelation.

Part two opens again referring to his mother’s death› He asked if I had felt any sadness that day

Again, Meursault insists love is meaningless. Meursault's concern for "physical needs" over "feelings" has been in evidence throughout the novel.

• The magistrate gets passionate and takes out a crucifix, attesting to God's willingness to forgive all crimes and asking Meursault whether he believes in God. When Meursault says he doesn't, the magistrate grows indignant, "screaming irrationally" that all men believe in God, and that to admit doubt would be to render his, the magistrate's, life meaningless. He shouts, "Do you want my life to be meaningless?"

Meursault's disinterest in the structures that give meaning to other people's lives are taken by others as a threat to them and to society.

This suggests a kind of nervousness within society—a secret mistrust of its own beliefs that it can't reveal even to itself.

• Prison rules show that the law organizes human relationships within a hierarchy: unmarried romantic relationships are less important than marriages. The moment Meursault is forced to comply with this hierarchy—which is meaningless to him because marriage is meaningless to him--marks the moment prison truly starts for him because now he is being restricted by society's belief structures.

The jurors? Society? Himself?

› Why aren’t people scared of him? Marie Raymond Salamano

Well, so I’m going to die. Sooner than other people will, obviously. But everybody knows life isn’t worth living. Deep down I knew perfectly well that it doesn’t much matter whether you die at thirty or at seventy, since in either case other mean and women will naturally go on living-and for thousands of years. In fact, nothing could be clearer. Whether it was now or twenty years from now, I would still be the on dying.

Three or more reasons to agree Three or more reasons if you disagree

and answer-What is he then?

Meursault's rant defends the idea of human interchangeability that he's believed since novel's start. Yet, while his previous attitude towards the idea seemed apathetic and indifferent, Meursault here describes the notion passionately. He presents it as an ideal of human equality. He is arguing that to live for some meaning in some other supposed life is to not live at all. That because your life could have turned out any way, but just happened to turn out this way, you have to treasure it and accept it for what it is.

Meaningless of life and the absurd Chance and Interchangeability Indifference and passivity Physical Experience trumps emotional

experience