The Strange Journal 1

Culture: There were a few things that I saw with the culture first when Meursault says, “I asked my boss for two days off… He wasn’t too happy about” (3).This quote ties in with the Work Ethic of the French because they get thirty five hour work weeks and six weeks of vacation. That is why Meursault’s boss is upset because Meursault get so much off as it is. When using “Madame” (4), “Monsieur” (5) the reader starts getting the French culture also after Camus writes about “Paris” (7).  Also on page six “Arab nurse… brightly colored scarf on her head. “  This quote talks about the Muslim culture.

 Journal: Meursalt irritates me so much because all he thinks about is sleep. He either is sleeping, drowsy, or he just woke up.  “I dozed off. I slept almost the whole way.” (4) He is just on a bus for traveling to a funeral and his is sleeping already. Doesn’t sound like he is getting off to a great start. Then at the vigil he felt himself “getting sleepy” (7) and “dozed off again” (11) at a funeral. I just really would like to scream at him. It just shows that his mother’s death really doesn’t affect him at all.

Another thing that I found interesting is that he is very lazy for instance on page twenty one when he doesn’t want to just walk down stairs to get some bread or go to Celeste’s. I kinda find it interesting because for someone being so tired all the time you wouldn’t think he would be lazy. Another thing I find strange that I think ties into this is that he moves all his furniture into one room of his apartment. Why do that? I think though it is because he is too lazy to clean the rest of the house.

He also gets very annoyed easily and so do I for him getting annoyed.  “Breathing down my neck…annoy me” (7) and “now it is all these people…getting on my nerves.” (11) He gets annoyed by the most interesting things like someone crying, a bunch of people coming into the vigil, and someone breathing down his neck. I do kinda though understand why you would get annoyed by the breathing down your neck.  But it is interesting that when he gets annoyed it is by people showing emotion and he doesn’t like showing emotion.

Something I noticed that constantly was repeated through the two chapters is that there are so many various colors. “pale blue”, “reddish” (6), “black” (13), “black” (14), “white”, “blood-red”, and “green”. (15) I notice that all these colors are describing something and normally are the things that Meursalt thought looked beautiful.