Ques: How far you agree that Meursault an outsider is convicted just for his refusal to play

the game of the society?

In The Stranger, Camus seeks to undermine the sense of reassurance that courtroom dramas
typically provide. Such narratives reassure us not only that truth will always prevail, but that
truth actually exists. They uphold our judicial system as just, despite its flaws. Ultimately, these
narratives reassure us that we live in a world governed by reason and order. Camus sees such
reassurance as a silly and false illusion. Because there is no rational explanation for Meursault’s
murder of the Arab, the authorities seek to construct an explanation of their own, which they base
on false assumptions. By imposing a rational order on logically unrelated events, the authorities
make Meursault appear to be a worse character than he is.

In The Stranger, Meursault is initially put on trial for killing the Arab, but the trial becomes more
and more about Meursault himself. The argument that the court is more intrigued and revolted is
on Meursault's outlook on life (his character) than the fact that he killed another person. This
starts out as typical questioning, to find out a criminal's character in order to discover a motive
for committing the crime. For example, at the beginning of Part 2, Meursault notes that he does
not believe in God and the magistrate finds this "unthinkable." Yet, killing the Arab was not
deemed unthinkable; it was just a crime. Meursault's outlook on life is more appalling to the
magistrate than the crime itself.

The judge and the Prosecutor spend much more time questioning Meursault about his
relationship with his mother than about the murder. The Prosecutor tells the jury that on the day
after Meursault's mother's funeral, Meursault was out at the movies with a girl (Marie), later
claiming that Meursault is "morally guilty" of his own mother's death. The case becomes all
about Meursault's odd behaviour. In fact, at the end of part III, in a surprising moment of overt
clarity, Meursault's lawyer asked, "Is my client on trial for having buried his mother, or for
killing a man?" Shortly thereafter, the Prosecutor responds, saying "I accuse the prisoner of
behaving at his mother's funeral in a way that showed he was already a criminal at heart."

The prosecutor manufactures a meaningful, rational connection between Meursault’s trial and the
upcoming parricide trial, even though no actual link exists between the two cases. However, the
prosecutor has no trouble imposing enough meaning to convince the jury that a link does in fact
exist, and that Meursault deserves a death sentence. Judging by this exchange and this last
comment, this is a decisive moment and an obvious declaration by the Prosecutor that the jury
should focus on the heartless way Meursault has behaved, prior to the crime. In other words, the
evidence of Meursault's murder of the Arab is an effect of his general criminal behaviour.

Meursault is eventually convicted of murder without mitigating circumstances. His lawyer told
Meursault to expect a favorable judgment, thinking he might get a few years and a suspended
sentence. But since Meursault showed no remorse and since Meursault's philosophy contradicts
the God-fearing, moral ideologies of the court, his sentence elicits the maximum punishment:
death. Like the trial itself, the conviction is based upon his crime, but the severity of the
punishment is based upon Meursault's character.

The trial portrays the absurdist ideal that truth does not exist because the universe is irrational.
This ideal destroys the very purpose of the trial, which seeks to place a rational explanation on
Meursault’s senseless killing of the Arab. However, because there is no rational explanation for
Meursault’s murder, the defense and prosecution merely end up constructing their own
explanations, which they each declare to be the truth, but are all based on false assumptions. The
trial is more about Meursault's character than the crime.