My group chose Maman to analyze. We first meet Meursault when he finds out about his mother's death and is deciding when to go to the funeral.
On the very first page he says, "For now, it's almost as if Maman weren't dead. After the funeral, though, the case will be closed, and everything will have a more official feel to it," (3). He is referring to her death in a very matter of fact, open and shut matter. The reference to a "case" and "official" I found interesting because when someone is on trial, unless you are directly involved, it is very impersonal. The jury is not allowed to have contact directly with the victim, and anyone working on the case can not have any emotional connection what so ever with it.
Through out the first chapter, we follow Meursault through his experience at the vigil and funeral. The entire time he seems very distant and disconnected. Everything is referred to in a matter of fact manner. He can describe the most ridiculous things in such great detail, such as how the screws on the casket looked against the wood, or how Mr. Perez's face looked when he cried, and yet he was unable to articulate why he didn't want to see his mother, "I don't know," (6).
Maman brings out Meursault's true self. He does seem to love her, but he himself does not seem to recognize it, "And from the peculiar little noise coming through the partition, I realized he was crying. For some reason I thought of Maman," (39). This passage shows her true heart, while he never cried once during the vigil or funeral, the thought of someone else crying over something they lost evokes feelings of loss in himself. This passage shows a bit of Frued's theory of the unconscious the Camus uses throughout the book.
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