The Stranger’s Meursault: An Epitome of an Existential Hero

Abstract

Existentialism is a key literary theory of twentieth century.  Albert Camus occupies a very prominent place among twentieth century writers. He is considered as the greatest exponent of the literary theory termed as existentialism. He gave a very vehement expression to the existential characteristics like alienation, detachment, anxiety, choice, freedom, responsibility etc. in his literary outputs.  He gave to the existential literature such masterpieces as The Stranger (1942), The Plague (1947), The Fall (1956) and A Happy Death (1971). Camus in his masterpiece The Stranger gave to the literary world a character named Meursault, who is considered as probably the greatest existential character till date. The objective of this research paper is to study Meursault in the light of existential theory and establish him as an epitome of an existential hero.