Quote 1
Maman
died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don’t know. I got a telegram from
the home: “Mother deceased. Funeral tomorrow. Faithfully yours.”
That doesn’t mean anything. Maybe it was yesterday.
Spoken by Meursault, the novel’s narrator
and protagonist, these are the opening lines of the novel. They
introduce Meursault’s emotional indifference, one his most important
character traits. Meursault does not express any remorse upon learning
of his mother’s death—he merely reports the fact in a plain and
straightforward manner. His chief concern is the precise day of
his mother’s death—a seemingly trivial detail.
Mersault’s comment, “That doesn’t mean anything,” has
at least two possible meanings. It could be taken as part of his
discussion about which day Madame Meursault died. That is, Meursault
could mean that the telegram does not reveal any meaningful information about
the date of his mother’s death. However, the comment could also
be read more broadly, with a significance that perhaps Meursault
does not consciously intend; Meursault might be implying that it
does not matter that his mother died at all. This possible reading introduces
the idea of the meaninglessness of human existence, a theme that
resounds throughout the novel.
