After reading “The Stone Boy” by Gina Berriault, the reaction to Arnold’s actions after his brother’s accidental death reminds me of another story that I read last year back in my senior year of high school. “The Stranger” by Albert Camus told the tale of a man named Meursault, who was thought to be uncaring and “reasonable beyond emotion” by everyone else. Although compared to Arnold, Meursault is entirely an exaggeration of apathy or a disconnect from one’s emotions but society’s opinion of them are quite similar. They didn’t follow society’s expectation of a grieving or pained individual and were made to look like monsters because of it.

When Meursault went to the beach the day after his mother’s funeral, he was considered a sociopath by society and most of my English class as well. Society considers Arnold to be a sociopath because he went to pick peas despite seeing that his brother was dead, and I noticed some people in our class thought so as well.

It would be a bit of a stretch to claim to know Meursault’s feelings about his mother’s passing or the fateful day at the beach where he murdered the man. We never truly get a glimpse into his emotional state of mind, unlike with Arnold. Taken at face value, Arnold is just like Meursault. People are too quick to judge him for what he did, but do not stop to think what a tragic accident could do a person, especially to someone as young and naïve as Arnold.

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