The end is near.

Meursault starts realizing that his personality and the universe are not very different because, like him, the world does not care either. However, everything changes when he shoots The Arab and the author tries to make the reader think of a reason to why Meursault did it when the fact is that he had no reason to do so, he just did it. The author cleverly lures the reader into applying one's own moral code into Meursault and his murder. The exact same thing happens when he is at court, there he is seen as a threat for his way of thinking and the people there made him out to be a worse person than he actually was because they didn't understand his attitude.

After this, in prison Meursault starts to gain self-awareness and during his trial he concludes that because of his failure in finding meaning in his own life he has left himself vulnerable to others, who will impose such a meaning in him. The trial forced Meursault to think about his existence because he is being held accountable for his actions.

While awaiting his execution, he begins to see his life as having a past, present, and future, and concludes that there is no difference between dying soon by execution and dying decades later of natural causes and after speaking with the chaplain, Meursault accepts death as an inevitable fact and looks forward to it with peace. Meursault’s eager anticipation of his death shows he is happy with being an outsider.