Written assignment: How did Meursault transition in characterization from the beginning to the end of the book? Camus' novel The Stranger offers insight into someone's indifference towards society. However, through interactions and relationships Camus places Meursault, shows Meursault's transition in characterization, then showing how he is indifferent to society. Ultimately, furthering his development from indifference to the awareness of having a place in society. There is an emphasis placed on Meursault's indifference towards society through the change in the book from how he interacts with people at the beginning of the book to how he interacts with people in the second half of the book. Meursault at the beginning of the book does not care about anyone he interacts with. Right at the beginning of the book his mother dies, and while most people would cry for their mother, Meursault does not. He wasn't even going to go to his mother's funeral, but the people who worked who knew him and had heard the news strongly encouraged him to go. When he arrived at his mother's funeral site, he spent time where his mother's body was kept, but never asked to see her one last time. All he did was sit, drink and smoke near his coffin. On the day of his mother's funeral, Meursault was more concerned about his surroundings than the fact that his mother had died, and cried with the other people who came to her funeral. Instead, all he had to say about that sad day was, "...Sunday was over...and, really, nothing had changed." (24). Another example in the first part of the book where Meursault shows his carelessness towards people, is when Marie asks... halfway through the paper... that I exist because they are going to die. Aside from his atheism, Meursault makes few assumptions about the nature of the world around him. However, his thinking begins to broaden once he is sentenced to death. After meeting the chaplain, Meursault concludes that the universe is, like him, totally indifferent to human life. Who then goes on to decide that people's lives don't have much meaning or importance in life. And that their actions, their comings and goings, have no effect on the world. This realization is the end result of all the events of the novel. When Meursault accepts "...the gentle indifference of the world..." (110) he finds peace with himself and the society around him, and his change in characterization is complete. Works Cited Camus, Albert and Matthew Ward. The stranger. New York: Vintage International, 1989. Print.