The Stranger: Paradox 2 key examples

Meursault explains that the paradox outlined by the nurse is one of the only things he remembers from his mother’s funeral, making it all the more significant. It is a straightforward paradox: there is no way to get to the church without being either unpleasantly hot or unpleasantly cold, and there is seemingly no way to sidestep the problem altogether. “There is no way out” could be the thesis of The Stranger—there is no way to avoid death, both in terms of Meursault’s death sentence and also in terms of death as the inevitable end of life. 

Death is relevant to the paradox because the scene takes place during a funeral, but also because death is foundational to Camus’s conception of the absurd: Camus argues elsewhere that embracing death is the only way to live a fulfilling life once faced with its absurdity. Meursault doesn’t know it yet, but he has in many ways already sealed his fate. It is his response to his mother’s death that condemns him at his trial and, as such, for Meursault, there is no longer a way out.

There is a lot going on at the very end of the novella, but the last sentence in particular appears paradoxical. Why would a large crowd of hateful spectators make Meursault feel less alone? Meursault could not be more alone than in a world where he is jeered at by an angry crowd as he is about to die, a fundamentally solitary act; and yet, to be surrounded by people and to be the center of attention is very much to be with people, whether one is hated or loved. More importantly, this sentence portrays a man who has finally embraced the absurd. Camus argues in The Myth of Sisyphus that hope is antithetical to the absurd, and it is only through embracing the futile nature of life—through embracing one's inevitable death and the lack of intelligible meaning in life—that one can revolt, or live life after being faced with its absurdity

Counterintuitively, then, it is only by embracing his death that Meursault is able to live. Once faced with life's absurdity, the only way to live it is by accepting "the gentle indifference of the world," or the fact that life inevitability ends with death. It's fitting that the novella ends with paradox, since it is through paradox that Meursault arrives at clarity: only through embracing death can one live an absurd life, only through getting rid of hope can one embrace death, and only through a large, hateful crowd can Meursault feel less alone.