Stranger Journal 4

Camus portrays the spiritual world as something that is neither real nor unreal. He does this by having the main character, Meursault be atheist. And by having many other characters be quite religious and having them try to convince Meursault that he should become religious. Camus portrays the spiritual world as something that an individual has for a particular reason. He does not imply that it does not exist, in fact he implies that it could exist inside of you, it is something that an individual possesses. "That was his belief, and if he were ever to doubt it, his life would become meaningless" (69). However, almost contradicting himself, Camus portrays the physical world as meaningless. We can see this by Meursault repeating the phrase, "It doesn't matter." This is contradictory because it would be a highly religious person that would believe that, they would believe that life on Earth does not matter, and it is your eternal life in heaven that does. Meursault has the belief that nothing matters at all, not even a heaven. That makes him different from the religious people, but it also makes him different than the people who believe that life on Earth is important.