The Stranger and my big question really do not relate to each other very much in my opinion. Because Meursalt is so indifferent about life throughout the novel it seems that nothing affected him, including relationships. Even with Marie, it said it made him happy at times, but we know that he could have gone without it. In that, I think Marie's relationship really didn't alter Meursalt's life on a drastic scale. It was nice for him to have something with a woman and something fun that he could experience with her, but in the end it really made no difference to him whether he was with her or not. He never truly depicts missing her terribly or longing for her when he is in jail and she is not allowed to see him anymore. The relationship between him and Raymond also wasn't very imposing on his life besides the fact that it lead to him killing the Arab. Meursalt is never angry with Raymond because it was basically Raymond's fault, and he simply accepts that he committed a crime.
The only true instance where Meursalt reveals his feelings is when he is with the man of God. I think the only reason for this occurring was because he knew he was about to die and so he finally decided to let out all the emotion that he had kept inside his entire life. I personally believe that there is more to Meursalt's mother then the author lead us to think. There most likely was something that occurred in his early childhood life, possibly something with his Dad, that made him want to bottle up his feelings and not care about the world. Why else would the author put in the details of the mother's funeral? Or, Meursalt and his mother had gone through something tragic or life changing together and with that it made Meursalt indifferent about the world and when his mother died the emotion started building up inside him until it was finally released explosively before his death. Overall, the only relationship that truly impacted Meursalt was that with his mother and all the others really did not impact his life drastically. And, that relationship with his mother was most likely harmful because it caused him to hold his emotions inside and let them build up until its breaking point.
