Who is this guy ?

It is obvious that Meursault is detached from his life. Why is the question I ask. He seems to be afraid to react to the death of his mother, or maybe he just wasn't close enough to her to really feel sadness. He wasn't even considered with the actual date of his mothers death, just knew he had died. During the funeral his mind was drifting off to random thoughts. This gave me the impression that he really didn't want to be there. I know if it was my mothers death i would be completely devastated.

I know a few people in my life that seem like they never feel any emotions at all. Its like they are never happy and instead of being sad it’s more like they are numb. My friend is like this all the time but it’s because she has sort of given up on any hope of enjoying her life. She's more of the, "life is meaningless" thinker. I don’t understand why she is like this because she is constantly surround by a lot of friends who genuinely care for her. But you know what; I can relate to being surrounded by all your friends and still feeling alone. The huge difference is that I give myself chances to become apart of the whole instead of detaching myself. i assume it cannot be healthy to feel like your basically dragging your body day by day instead of actually living.

WAIT, now looking back, I don’t think he is fully disconnected with life because while he is waiting for the funeral to start he starts to describe the lighting of the sun from the window. “The room was filled with beautiful late-afternoon sunlight.” The usage of the word beautiful shows that he appreciates the situation.

I think he just wasn’t really close to his mother. He mentions how after the coffee he wanted to smoke and then he thought about whether it was ok to do it in front of his mother (who is dead). He then says, “I thought about it; it didn’t matter,” and then he offers a cigarette to the caretaker and they smoke. If I wanted to smoke I would not do it in front of my mother and if she was dead that would make me respect even more not to smoke in front of her dead body.

As we continue to read I’m looking for two solutions, either he comes to realize and connect with the fact that his mother is dead and then starts to feel the appropriate emotions or we find out more about the relationship between him and his mother so we can understand his initial reaction to her death.