this is only an intensification of how he has always experienced the burden of life. Like Socrates practicing to die, Meursault has unwittingly spent a life learning to be guilty, denied his freedom. When I was first imprisoned, the hardest thing was that my thoughts were still those of a free man. For example, I would suddenly have the urge to be on a beach and to walk down to the water. As I imagined the sound of the first waves under my feet, my body entering the water and the sense of relief it would give me, all of a sudden I would feel just how closed in I was by the walls of my cell.
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