Death and Emotions

       In this month's blog I am going to try and write about a more general topic, we'll see how this works out. Death often comes in many forms. If death comes one way and we react hysterically we might be considered as overreacting. However if death comes in another way and we do not show much emotion, or many emotion at all we are considered as being cold, detached, and unemotional in all other aspects of life. When death occurs in life what is supposed to be our reaction? How much emotion does society think we should have?
      In our latest read, The Stranger, the main character Meursault doesn't show any emotion outwardly when his mother passes away. When he murders an Arab shortly after and goes to trial they manipulate his actions to basically say that he didn't show sadness when his mother died and he went out with a woman, Marie, the afternoon after his mother's funeral. For what we know, his mother passed away peacefully, she wasn't in much pain for long and she didn't suffer. So really Meursault should have been thankful that she wasn't in much pain for long and that could be possibly why he didn't show any sadness at her funeral. If she would have died painfully, or suffered from a long term illness, or even have been murdered that would have been more demanding for a more emotional responce from Meursault.
        It is true, that in life many people cry no matter what when a person that they were close to dies. However if someone that we are not very close to passes away peacefully we often show little to no emotion, such as the responce by Meursault. Since he had put his mother in a home and had grown farther apart from her he could have viewed her more as a stranger than as a loved one, reacting the way we often react to a death of a person we know only vaguely.