Meursault and Milkman; Dispassionate Protagonists of Different Coming-Of-Age Worlds

Both Meursault and Milkman share a common trait of being dispassionate; Meursault is very emotionally indifferent to most things, including his mother’s death, animal abuse, and his murder of the Arab. Milkman is similarly indifferent to life; he’s spent the better part of his life drifting aimlessly and only partying with the people on Honore Beach. Interestingly, both Meursault and Milkman both enjoy the aspects of sex and other physical aspects of life, seeing as how Meursault derives joy from his troubled relationship with Marie, and Milkman’s twenty years of carefree partying on Honore Beach. Although their personalities are somewhat different (Milkman being a little more emotional), this connection and other similarities relate the two protagonists’ roles closely.

---spoilers for the end of Song of Solomon---

Both characters have a significant moment in the book where they finally show some independence and initiative, and the resulting events impact their lives heavily. For example, Meursault’s moment of gumption comes when he talks Raymond into putting the gun down and not shooting the Arab. However, this event causes him to have the gun himself and this later results in his murder of the Arab, a chain of events that would not have happened if Meursault hadn’t pursued his course of action. Milkman has arguably two events, one when he takes action against Macon for hitting Ruth, and one where he goes after the gold on his own. The second one is more meaningful, because it specifically involves his independent choice (an example would be Guitar’s concern and how he worries that Milkman hasn’t done anything on his own). As a result of his trip into Pennsylvania and later into Virginia, he discovers an incredible amount of information about his family history, including the legend of Solomon. While Meursault’s result is that he dies, and Milkman undergoes a positive character transformation, the motivations and themes between the two characters are similar.

In order to look at the connection more closely, we have to delve into the setting of The Stranger and Song of Solomon; both worlds include racial tensions to different degrees, and those tensions play a major part in the story. Arab-colonist tensions are present in The Stranger through how the Arabs are not given proper descriptions, implying a subhuman status. Camus is sympathetic towards the pied noir, and Meursault’s murder of the Arab can be argued as an attempt to warn society of the developing strife between the two racial demographics. In Song of Solomon, the difference between white and black people is a major focus of the story, as seen with Guitar’s business with the Seven Days and his mentality towards white people. In addition, while Milkman’s adventure to PE and VA isn’t directly influenced by race relations, they act as the background/causation of most events in the story, like how Macon Sr died from a white person shooting him. The aforementioned connection is that both characters can be interpreted as heros of their own race; Meursault attempts to save the pied-noirs in Algeria by forewarning the racial strife that would fracture the country, and Milkman becomes a progenitor of Solomon’s flight, thereby adopting his black heritage and essentially becoming an idol for his own race.

Finally, the ending scenes of both books provide a conclusive finish to the analogy. In a sense, both characters are “saved” or “liberated” in the final acts of their respective novels. Meursault and Milkman both undergo substantial changes during the last chapters, with Meursault’s indictment changing his outlook on life and attitude, and Milkman’s exploration of the legend of Solomon and embracing his ancestral gift of flight. While Meursault’s ending is not quite as hopeful as Milkman’s, both of the characters come to terms with their predicaments and even embrace them. Their previous dispassionate states evolve into galvanized, independent mentalities as both Milkman and Meursault seem to embody their coming-of-age evolution.