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Musa
Harun’s and Musa’s mother. A poor and uneducated woman, Mama conceives of herself primarily in relation to her sons and the boys’ father. In the wake of her husband’s abandonment and Musa’s death, Mama suffers an emotional breakdown from which she never recovers. After the French authorities refuse to punish the murderer (Meursault) or even return Musa’s body to his family, Mama becomes obsessed with retribution for Musa’s death, and she seems to resent Harun for outliving his older brother and for being unable, due to his youth, to avenge Musa’s death. Mama harbors this desire until, as an adult, Harun kills a Frenchman named Joseph, a friend of the French family for whom Mama works; after this second murder, Mama takes on a more tranquil temperament and becomes affectionate towards Harun for the first time. Her feelings seem to proceed from deep love and cognizance of her powerlessness within her own society. However, they prevent her from being a supportive mother to Harun. As an adult, Harun deeply resents his mother for his emotionally unstable childhood and blames her (perhaps unfairly) for his inability to form stable relationships with others. At the same time, he can never bring himself to disown her completely, and continues to visit her, although by this time she’s almost entirely ceased talking.
Mama Quotes in The Meursault Investigation
The The Meursault Investigation quotes below are all either spoken by Mama or refer to Mama. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 3
Quotes
People in the neighborhood showed my mother his picture in the newspaper, but for us he was the spitting image of all the colonists who’d grown fat on so many stolen harvests. There was nothing special about him […] and his features were instantly forgettable, easy to confuse with those of all his kind.
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Chapter 4
Quotes
Consequently, my mother imposed on me a strict duty of reincarnation. For instance, as soon as I grew a little, she made me wear my dead brother’s clothes, even though they were still too big for me […] I was forbidden to wander away from her, to walk by myself, to sleep in unknown places, and, while we were still in Algiers, to venture anywhere near the beach.
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Chapter 6
Quotes
Well, yes! I remember that, I remember feeling a strange jubilation at seeing her really suffering for once. To prove my existence, I had to disappoint her. It was like fate. That tie bound us together deeper than death.
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Chapter 12
Quotes
I know that if Musa hadn’t killed me – actually, it was Musa, Mama, and your hero, those are my three murderers – I would have had a better life, at peace with my language on a little patch of land somewhere in this country, but that wasn’t my destiny.
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Chapter 14
Quotes
“Everything was written!” Mama blurted out, and I was surprised by the involuntary aptness of her words. Written, yes, but in the form of a book, and not by some God. Did we feel ashamed of our stupidity? Did we contain and irrepressible urge to laugh like foods, us, the ridiculous pair stationed in the wings of a masterpiece we didn’t even know existed?
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Mama Quotes in The Meursault Investigation
The The Meursault Investigation quotes below are all either spoken by Mama or refer to Mama. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 3
Quotes
People in the neighborhood showed my mother his picture in the newspaper, but for us he was the spitting image of all the colonists who’d grown fat on so many stolen harvests. There was nothing special about him […] and his features were instantly forgettable, easy to confuse with those of all his kind.
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Chapter 4
Quotes
Consequently, my mother imposed on me a strict duty of reincarnation. For instance, as soon as I grew a little, she made me wear my dead brother’s clothes, even though they were still too big for me […] I was forbidden to wander away from her, to walk by myself, to sleep in unknown places, and, while we were still in Algiers, to venture anywhere near the beach.
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Chapter 6
Quotes
Well, yes! I remember that, I remember feeling a strange jubilation at seeing her really suffering for once. To prove my existence, I had to disappoint her. It was like fate. That tie bound us together deeper than death.
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Chapter 12
Quotes
I know that if Musa hadn’t killed me – actually, it was Musa, Mama, and your hero, those are my three murderers – I would have had a better life, at peace with my language on a little patch of land somewhere in this country, but that wasn’t my destiny.
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Chapter 14
Quotes
“Everything was written!” Mama blurted out, and I was surprised by the involuntary aptness of her words. Written, yes, but in the form of a book, and not by some God. Did we feel ashamed of our stupidity? Did we contain and irrepressible urge to laugh like foods, us, the ridiculous pair stationed in the wings of a masterpiece we didn’t even know existed?
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