“And I felt ready to live it all again too. As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself — so like a brother really — I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again” (122).

In Albert Camus’ The Stranger, the main character, Meursault rejects the traditional societal structures that many people value. For example, he doesn’t want to marry his girlfriend, Marie, he doesn’t cry at his mother’s funeral, and he doesn’t believe in God. Meursault believes these relationships create false hope for people that death isn’t certain. People don’t want to face the meaninglessness of death and death itself, so they grasp onto these societal structures to escape it.

In the last chapter of the novel, Meursault rises above these societal structures and realizes the indifference of the world. After waiting in his prison cell, hoping for the appeal to his eviction to come back positively, Meursault finally grasps the certainty and reality of death. “Everybody was privileged. There were only privileged people. The others would all be condemned one day. And he would be condemned too” (121). No matter what anyone did in their lives, they were all elected to the same fate. During their lives, people are never satisfied because they always try to reach greater success.

Through Meursault, Albert Camus argues that one isn’t truly happy until they face the certainty of their death. They can live their lives with meaning once they accept their inevitable fate. In The Stranger, once Meursault accepts his appeal will never come back positive, he spends every waking hour appreciating his last days. The guards were going to take him away to be exiled at night, so he takes peace when dawn comes around knowing that he will live another day.

Once Meursault accepts death, he finds happiness.