The Underground Man and Meursault share the goal of ensuring that they lead authentic lives, lives free from the expectations and confines of society and themselves. However, each undergo a different process to reach this objective. The Underground Man believed he would achieve his authentic self by rebelling against the deterministic laws of nature. That is, he believed that meaningful existence would be created by intentionally going against the general assumption that humans do what is most advantageous to them. Instead of complying with the “law” of rational determinism, he intentionally chose actions that were painful or irrational. By doing this he demonstrated his free will which allowed him to take such actions. One example of this behaviour is when a group of his friends from his schooldays throw a farewell party for Zverkov, a friend in the group.
The Underground Man decides to demonstrate his free will by forcing himself into the affair, knowing the definite awkwardness it would cause. He explains, “I’d go on purpose. The more tactless, the more indecent it was for me to go, the more certain I’d be to do it” (Dostoyevsky 46). At the party he upsets all his friends, deeply offending them and causing himself mental anguish as he was exiled from the group. He knows that the longer he stayed, the worse the situation got, and the deeper it burned itself into his memory, yet he still refused to leave. Revealing his torment, he exclaimed “These [are the] filthiest, most absurd, and horrendous moments of my entire life. It was impossible to humiliate myself more shamelessly or more willingly” (Dostoyevsky 55). While the Underground Man tries to live authentically through railing against determinism, Meursault refuses to conform to the societal expectations of his behaviour. In almost every situation he responds in a way which shocks and disgusts those around him. He does not cry upon receiving the news of his mother’s death, nor show any grief at her funeral, pursuing pleasurable and sexual activities the very next day. Furthermore, he is not upset when he overhears his neighbour beating his mistress, and he shows no remorse after killing someone. He staunchly refuses to fit within society’s confines because it meant that he couldn’t be his authentic self.
Being his authentic self also meant that he could not tell any form of untruth. Even in his trial, Meursault refuses to lie even when he knows it would keep him from being convicted. Both Meursault and the Underground Man experience this aloneness, this distance from society, as a consequence of pursuing self-authentication. The titles themselves of the two works alert the reader to the intrinsic nature of alienation to the protagonists experiences. Camus entitles his novel L’Étranger, a term which is incredibly difficult to accurately translate into English. In the French dictionary Le Petit Robert the definition of “‘étranger” is a “person whose personality is not that of a given country; a person who does not belong, or is considered not to belong to a family or clan; a person with whom one as nothing in common”. These last two meanings are notably applicable to Meursault, who definitely does not belong in society and is therefore alienated and rejected. On the reasons for this alienation however, there is no consensus. In his extended essay, “An Explication of The Stranger”, Jean-Paul Sarte says that Meursault is “one of those terrible innocents who shocks society by not accepting the rules of its game”. Albert Maquet also sees society as a game governed by strict rules that we must all follow. He interprets Meursault’s alienation as stemming from this refusal to support society’s constructs, saying “Society condemns... this kinda of monster who refuse with unequaled firmness to enter into the game of their illusions, lies, and hypocrisies. Society wants a reassuring attitude from him and he does nothing but denounce, by his tranquil stubbornness in speaking the truth, the real and miserable aspect of man’s fate”.