The Role of Judgment in The OutsiderThe actions of Meursault, the protagonist of AlbertCamus' The Outsider, are characterized by irrationality. For example, there is no clear logical reason for his decision to marry Marie or kill the Arab. “That evening Marie came to pick me up and asked me if I wanted to marry her. I said I didn't care and we could do it if she wanted” (Camus 44). However, the idea that things sometimes happen for no reason is disturbing and threatening to society, because, as a logical conclusion from this, individual existence could have happened for no reason and would therefore be purposeless. So, society always tries to find logical reasons for everything. In this novel, society superimposes its rational nature on Meursault's irrational character, which results in society making false judgments about Meursault, because the judgments do not accord with his irrational personality. The prosecutor's speech and the meetings between the magistrate and Meursault will be used as examples to demonstrate this. Before delving into these topics, it should be explained that both the public prosecutor and the magistrate symbolize society, since they are part of the court, which represents society as a whole. The idea of ​​a court already represents a lot for society, since the law functions as the will of the people and the jury judges on behalf of the entire community. But Camus clearly underlines this image of the “court-as-society” in this novel, making almost all the characters from the first half reappear as witnesses of the trial: The manager and the keeper of the house, Thomas Pérez, Raymond, Masson, Salamano, Marie and Celeste. First, the fact that the prosecution interprets Meursault's irrational action of killing the Arab in a rational way demonstrates that society imposes its rational character on Meursault's irrational personality. “[Meursault repeating the prosecutor's argument] I asked him for his gun. I came back with the intention of using it. I had shot the Arab as I had planned. I had waited. And "to make sure I had done the job well", I had fired four more shots, deliberately, point blank and with a sort of forethought” (96). The prosecutor here provides a rational explanation for Meursault's murder of the Arab, that is, he explains how every step that led to the murder was planned by Meursault. However, nothing in Meursault's account explains why he shot the Arab (not to mention that there is evidence in his account that he planned the murder), which suggests that there is no rational explanation for his action. So the fact that the public prosecutor, who represents society, here interprets that of Meursault