Use this page when you know the book but need the right person, force, or relationship to carry the argument.
Come here when you need to sort out who matters, what they want, and where they actually help your argument in The Stranger.
Contents
The narrator and main character. He processes the world through physical sensation rather than emotion. His honesty about his own indifference drives every conflict in the novel. He doesn't change until the very end, when he accepts the absurd and finds peace in it.
Meursault's girlfriend. She is warm and wants a real relationship. She asks if he loves her; he says probably not, but he'd marry her if she wanted. She shows up at the trial and is used against him. Her presence shows what Meursault can't give people emotionally.
Meursault's neighbor and the person whose conflict pulls Meursault into the shooting. Raymond is manipulative and violent, but Meursault doesn't judge him. Their friendship shows Meursault's moral indifference — he helps Raymond without asking whether he should.
The official who interrogates Meursault before trial. He is obsessed with getting Meursault to accept God. When Meursault refuses, the magistrate calls him the most hardened soul he has ever met. He represents the institutional need to find meaning in everything.
He visits Meursault repeatedly and pushes religious faith as comfort. Meursault's outburst at him is the emotional climax of the novel. The chaplain forces Meursault to articulate his absurdist position out loud for the first time.
She appears only in memory and at her own funeral. Her death opens the novel and her life closes it. In the final pages, Meursault decides she must have found the same peace he has found. She is the emotional anchor of the book even though she never speaks.
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