According to Meursault, the main character of Albert Camus’ The Stranger, death places no toll on humanity. Whether one has lived for others, for himself, as a millionaire, or impoverished, his death will become as matter of fact as a hiccup. While Meursault acknowledges the possibility for temporary grievance by loved ones, eventually no one will remember to grieve and one’s death will cease to have even nostalgic value.
Camus demonstrates this gloomy view through the murder of the Arab. Nobody appears to care that a man has been coldly murdered. His death’s most prominent effect on humanity is it provides an excuse to put Meursault on trial. However, Meursault’s trial becomes more of a social critique of his personality than a means for justice for the Arab. The Arab’s death doesn’t anger anyone and it isn’t mentioned or thought of except in courtroom formalities.
By calling death pointless, Meursault also calls life pointless. If death cannot create any commotion then it must be because life has not caused any. Meursault argues that life is pointless and the achievements of one man are never worthy of great praise because, in time, everything that’s been done would have been done anyway. Meursault believes that humanity, as a whole, only uses individuals to speed up the progress of inventions and discoveries, not to create them.
With such blunt cynicism, Camus strips away the usual ceremony that surrounds death in order to replace it with a sort of mechanic indifference. In the eyes of an existentialist, death cannot be measured as good or bad, it simply is and mustn’t be dwelled on
