Meursault's Possible Condition of Alexithymia

In yesterday's panel presentation, we talked about how Meursault could be exhibiting characteristics of Alexithymia (a personality disorder characterized by a lack of social attachment and emotional awareness) and how his act of murdering the Arab was really him enacting his revenge on his absent father. Much of the author's argument is that Meursault's cause of Alexithymia stems from a childhood trauma of having an absent father, but I think it's hard for the readers to connect with this rationale since we aren't given any information about how Meursault feels about not having a father or what Meursault's relationship with his father was like. While I do agree with the plausibility that Alexithymia could have caused his actions on the beach, I think it's more probable that it's due to him not having a strong, constant relationship with his mother. Even though his mother was present for a major part of his life, they had a very distant relationship, which was seen when he didn't know simple facts about her such as her age.

Throughout much of part two, we read about how Meursault strongly believes that the sun caused him to shoot the Arab. The author of the article forms an argument for why Meursault's possible condition of Alexithymia coerced him to shoot the Arab but I don't think that the condition itself is a valid enough argument to explain all of Meursault's actions on the beach. A question that not only readers but also characters in the novel have is why Meursault felt the need to pause after the first bullet and then shoot four more times. In my opinion, I don't think Alexithymia really explains the actions that happened on the beach because no amount of social and detachment and emotional unawareness would help explain the rationale behind shooting the gun five times. However, at the same time, I don't think the sun is a viable and realistic explanation either.

The author of the article does a good job connecting Meursault's personality traits with a pre-existing condition but I think using that condition to explain all of Meursault's behaviors and actions is a bit of a reach. While I do agree that Meursault suffers from some sort of personality disorder (it may or may not be characterized as Alexithymia), I think there is more to learn about his character to fully understand what was going through his mind on the day of the shooting.

Comments

  1. Elizabeth RienstraNovember 4, 2018 at 11:46 AM

    I agree with what you're saying about the parental factors of alexithymia. That seemed like a bit of a stretch in the the article. And I also think that you make a good point about alexithymia not being the only cause behind the beach scene. After the pause, alexithymia doesn't explain the next four shots. It's the only part of the scene I can't understand using the explanation of alexithymia -- I'm just as hung up on it as the court is. So I agree that alexithymia doesn't explain everything about Meursault: we need more to understand all of his actions.

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  2. AngelynnNovember 5, 2018 at 11:59 AM

    Agreed, my group also did the same article on alexithymia and there were some parts of the article that definitely did make sense. I believe the stretch that comes in is how the author attempts to mark alexithymia as the sole cause of Mersault's awful decision. I highly doubt Camus had written Mersault within alexithymia in mind.

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  3. RaineNovember 13, 2018 at 1:54 PM

    I think that part of what Camus wants is for this crime to have no explanation that would hold up in court. Because we experience these events from Meursault's perspective, we know what happened, but are left at a loss when it comes to justification. This leads us to question how we can actually judge a person. The explanation of Alexithymia seems to fit some of Meursault's actions, but it doesn't fully make sense with the context of the novel.

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  4. Amina GNovember 15, 2018 at 2:53 PM

    There is a possibility that one of the causes is his relationship with his dad, (which we don't know enough about to be sure), but I think its definitely because of his relationship with his mother. I don't really know if we can just put everything he's ever done under just one diagnosis, because he clearly has bigger, much more serious underlying problems that made him make the decisions he made, but that could be one of them.

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