Characters and Perspective in the Stranger

     Throughout the Stranger, we see the different portrayals of women and men in Algier in the 1940's. My pod discussed this often, even before we learned that Mersault was on the spectrum. 

    The way different male characters treated the women in the novel was both surprising and not surprising at the same time. Already noticing that Mersault seemed detached from the others in his life, the way he treated Marie compared to Celeste or Raymond differed greatly. 

    Although Mersault seemed distant from most people around him, Mersault's perspective and how he viewed Marie was similar to how someone views an object. "I wanted her so bad" or "I wanted her to stay with me" at first didn't shock me since many of Mersault's sentences (using the ctrl F feature 21times) started with "I want" and directly conveyed his feelings, but Mersault's possessive form of "I want" for Marie was not seen with other characters. 

    Now panning to Raymond, his obvious abusive relationship with his "girlfriend" was out of the norm for both society back then and today. To have Mersault be exposed to this multiple times would only negatively affect his perception, since those with autism spectrum disorder already have less interactions with others and can struggle to communicate. The whole spiral of events that Mersault falls into occurs because of Raymond's bad blood with the Arab, and similarly my pod had the reoccurring thought that Raymond's character would affect Mersault.

    Celeste, being someone who was just as close or even closer to Mersault than Marie, was another person who guided and supported Mersault before and throughout his trial. Even with this being the case, Mersault doesn't view Celeste the way he does Marie.

     Mersault's perspective is already set in stone, and Raymond being the one who is able to craft Mersault's perspective slowly changes Mersault to in the end realize the importance of perspective.