The Stranger

"For if in the course of what has been a long career I have had the occasion to call for the death penalty,never as strongly as today have I felt this painful duty had easier, lighter, clearer by the certain knowledge of a sacred imperative and by the horror I feel when I look into a man's face and all I see is a monster" (102).


This passage spells the beginning of the end for the main character of The Stranger. He killed a man for no particular reason earlier in the novel and now faces trial. The prosecutor's final statements were memorable because he articulates the main character as this gruesome, fell, and terrible beast of a man in order to get a guilty verdict. However, the reader knows that there is really no method behind the madness, the main character is simply an uncaring person. He often blames things on fate, and feels no matter what he does it will do no good to the bigger picture. This irony foreshadows the eventual guilty verdict and subsequent death sentence beyond what the prosecutor says. The reader knows that the main character is rather hollow, and does not care to die. He is essentially already dead.

The picture not only shows someone who is literally dead, but it shows a subtle emptiness. There is no face, there is no humanity excepting the physical form of the skull, there is no feeling to it, which frightens people like the prosecutor. Black and white are the only two colors that comprise the face, which can represent the main character's lack of true depth. The emptiness and lack of caring and emotion makes the main character look like a bad guy, but he really believes he is caught up in circumstance. He is dead and there is nothing he can do about it.