trial, the court construes his lack of emotional attachment to his mother as an explanation of the murder, and vice versa. Together, the two justify the prosecutor's definition of Meursault as a "monster." Meursault's predicament develops Camus's philosophy of the absurd--that humans tend to impose a rational order on the world in the face of evidence that the world is absurd. He focuses on the dilemma of acceptance of the absurd without succumbing to despair. Meursault becomes the Absurd Hero when he can accept the absence of a rational basis for his death sentence without succumbing to despair. Hope is merely a distraction from the short time he has left. Meursault develops an optimism without hope, which allows him to make the most of the short life he has left....
