What would happen if you refused to read the lines you’re supposed to? If you spoke your mind, and acted as you *really* wanted, what would people think?

This is how the protagonist of Albert Camus’ “The Outsider”, Meursault, treats the world. He refuses to express feelings he doesn’t have or behave as people want him to.

The book’s plot is fairly straightforward. After his mother dies, Meursault witnesses some Arabs fighting his repugnant friend, Raymond. Meursault later sees one of this gang on the beach, and shoots “the Arab” dead. At his trial, Meursault shows none of the usual reactions of a murderer. He’s cold, nonchalant, and treats it all with indifferent detachment.

Meursault is someone who just won’t play by the rules of the game, and both we the reader and the characters in the story, view him with a mixture of repulsion and respect. On the one hand, we see an authentic, honest person as admirable in some way, and long to emulate them. On the other hand, there’s something antisocial and sociopathic about someone who *never* cares what others think. We are, as Kierkegaard said, a paradox of a social being yet craving individuality.

When Meursault, for example, glibly states that marriage is not a serious thing, and he’ll marry his girlfriend, Marie, “if she’s keen on it”, we’re inclined to appreciate his refreshing honesty. Yet, when he then fails to show any emotion at his mother’s funeral, and begins the novel by forgetting which day she died, we see him as emotionless or…broken, perhaps.

Most confusing of all is *why* Meursault killed “The Arab”. We might want to assume it was from some kind of twisted loyalty to his friend, as this we could perhaps understand. Yet even this Mersault defies. In one passage, he reflects that one “can shoot or not shoot. It doesn’t matter. If someone is murdered or not, the world doesn’t care”. Any heroic vigilantism we might ascribe him has morphed into baseless, wanton *doing*. An amoral existentialist’s act.

So, do you want to be Meursault? Do you want to turn your back on the world, and reject everything it tells you to do? Or do you only want to do so in a socially accepted way? Are you a genuine Outsider, or just a mainstream rebel?