Reader Response Criticism of The Stranger by Camus In The Stranger, Albert Camus anticipates an active reader who will react to your text. He wants the reader to form a changing and dynamic opinion of Meursault. The reader can create a conscience for Meursault from the facts reported by Meursault. By using vague and ambiguous language, Camus encourages the reader to explore all possibilities of meaning. Camus also intends to shock the reader into rereading the passages. Through discussion of narrative structure, opening lines, the role of pity, Meursault's resentment of judges, and the relationship between murder and innocence, I will demonstrate that Camus's purpose is to lead the reader to introspect on their own relationship with the company. narrative structure, Camus invites the reader to create and become Meursault's conscience. Professor David Anderson of Utah Sate University notes that "Meursault takes the position of merely reporting these impressions, without attempting to create a coherent story from them." In the first part, in fact, what Meursault reports are exclusively facts. Micheline Tisson-Braun comments that Meursault “records the facts, but not their meaning; ...is purely instantaneous; he lacks the principle of unity and continuity that characterizes man" (49). Through generalization, the reader connects details of Meursault's life. The reader thus creates his own meaning for Meursault's actions. Meursault, without memory or imagination, refuses to waste time connecting events and contemplating essences. The reader does this for Meursault. Thus, the reader creates for Meursault a consciousness that is uniquely his. He exactly represents Meursau...... middle of paper ......der to experience the trial in Meursault's place. Perhaps Camus wrote the entire first part to put the reader in a situation where he must reevaluate his relationship with society. Whatever the reader's emotional response, Camus puts him in a position to experience the process, the absurd. Through the anticipation of a responsive reader, Camus communicates the essence of the absurd. Works Cited Camus, Albert. The stranger. France: Éditions Gallimond, 1942.Camus, Albert. The Stranger, trans. Matthew Ward. New York: Random House, Inc., 1988. Girard, René. "Camus's Stranger Reprobated." “to double business bound” Essays on literature, mimesis and anthropology. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1978. Tisson-Braun, Micheline. "The silence and the desert: the flickering vision." Critical essays on Albert Camus, ed. Bettina L. Knapp. Boston: GK Hall & Co., 1988.