Time Warp

Meursault goes through life relatively passive. Hearing, but not actually listening; living, but not stopping; and moving, but without any real purpose. It is safe to say that the protagonist of The Stranger lets life pass him by for the most part. For Meursault, time moves irregularly choppy. For example, during Maman’s funeral he recalls “After that, everything seemed to happen so fast, so deliberately, so naturally that I don’t remember any of it anymore,” illustrating time moving fast around him. Also, at the beginning of Camus’ work, Meursault spends a whole day watching the blur of people “heading to the movies in town.” Almost in a trance, the span of a whole day occurs in the space of a couple of paragraphs.

Meursault, as well, notices this too as during dinner with his neighbor, Raymond, he remarks “how quickly the time passed, and in a way it was true.” Time is a huge recurring theme in The Stranger with regards to how fast it moves compared to how willing Meursault is to keep up with it.

Meursault makes actions without planning and no thought to time. For example, he assaults the Arab “without even thinking about it.” He goes through the mundane concerns of day-to-day time, without any concern for repercussions. As NBC’s soap opera puts it: Like Sands Through the Hourglass... So Are the Days of Our Lives!