Journal #4

At the end of the novel Meursault comes to the conclusion that although the priest thought he knew what he was talking about, he knew nothing. He basically rationalizes all the decisions he made throughout his life by saying that none of it mattered because he would eventually die, whether it was in an execution or 20 years later it didn't matter. Meursault comes to the conclusion that searching for the meaning of life is absurd and not worth any of the limited time he had left. I think that Camus does want the reader to come to the same conclusions, however he does not want the reader to use it as a justification for something such as murder like Meursault does. I think this because Camus himself talked about absurdism, and put much of his life into the character of Meursault, so that led me to the conclusion that Camus wouldn't necessarily be critical of Meursault. Having said that though, Camus does give Meursault the death sentence in the end of the novel, so I think that Camus is sending a warning to people about the dangers of taking this absurd belief to an extreme that could be used for potentially harmful purposes. So in the end I think that Camus wants the reader to come to the same conclusion as Meursault, that anyone who claims to have all of the answers is lying and that searching for the meaning of life is absurd, however he does not want the reader to use this is a justification for performing evil actions that harms others.