The Stranger Or the Boy from Belcourt

THE STRANGER, OR THE BOY FROM BELCOURTto their discipline” had probably participated in such ceremonies many times before. 169 Highschool — like the “stores and shopkeepers” on the commute between Belcourt and Bugeaud— “had come to have such an important place in [Camus’s] life.” The poignant irony of thisscene emerges from the fact that Camus’s family could never fully understand the symbolicmeaning of the school’s rituals and signs. These included the singing of the “Marseillaise”and speeches made by officials about France and education. “The grandmother could hear,but she did not understand very much,” Camus writes. “When [she] spoke to her neighborsduring the awards ceremony, he felt himself meanly blushing…he was squirming.” 170What the adolescent author feared most was being perceived as an Other. It wasenough that he came from a poor neighborhood and did not have a father as his friends did;now, he had to watch uncomfortably as his mother and grandmother attended an importantevent in his academic life without seizing its meaning. For everyone else in the room, thespectacle was the ceremony itself — a time of celebration and pride; for Camus, it waswitnessing his grandmother pretend to know what was going on — a source of physicaldiscomfort and personal shame. 171Despite Camus’s self-consciousness about his family’s ignorance, his mother andgrandmother display a heartwarming amount of pride over his academic accomplishments.When Camus goes to receive his awards, consisting of certificates and book prizes, hisgrandmother “flush[es] with excitement” and his mother “gaz[es] at him with a sort ofastonished joy.” 172 At home, the grandmother even has Camus dog-ear the pages of theaward list where his name appears, so she can show it later to their neighbors and relatives.“You did good work,” Camus’s mother tells him with pride. 173 His family may not haveknown what that “good work” entailed, but they certainly recognized that their Albert had agift.LA MALADIE“At the hospital. The tubercular patient who is told by the doctor that he has fivedays to live. He anticipates and cuts his throat with a razor. Obviously, he can’t waitfive days…One of the male nurses tells the journalists: ‘Don’t mention it in yourpapers. He’s suffered enough already.” 174169ibid. p. 253170ibid. p. 253-4171 Still, Camus notes that his mother and grandmother were not the only members of the audience who did notfully understand what was being said at the ceremony. When a young teacher, “newly arrived that year fromFrance,” delivers a formal address “stuff[ed] with cultural allusions and humanist subtleties,” the speechbecomes “utterly intelligible to [the] Algerian audience.” (p. 254) Thus, Camus illustrates how the educationgap within the French colonial system kept ignorant not only his own family but also many of their peers.172supra Camus, Albert. The First Man. trans. by David Hapgood. p. 255173ibid.174 Camus, Albert. Notebooks 1935-1951. trans. by Philip Thody. New York: Marlow & Co., 1998. Print. p. 107158