Misunderstand

Crime is a solitary act, even if a thousand people commit it together.
Living alone, killing alone, and now dying alone—this is as it should be.

The Misunderstanding is Camus's simplest, most understandable, yet most sensational work. Camus read a news report in the Algerian Echo that deeply disturbed him, as he saw a reflection of himself in the event. He subsequently wrote The Misunderstanding, a story that also appeared in a newspaper clipping within his novel The Stranger.

The newspaper clipping version in The Stranger goes like this: A man leaves his small Czech village to seek his fortune elsewhere. Twenty-five years later, having made a lot of money, he returns to his hometown with his wife and child. His mother and sister run an inn in their hometown. To surprise them, he settles his wife and child in another hotel and goes to his mother's inn himself. When he enters, his mother doesn't recognize him. He decides to play a joke, impulsively reserving a room and showing off his wealth. During the night, his mother and sister kill him, steal his money, and dump his body in the river. In the morning, his wife arrives and, unknowingly, reveals the traveler's identity. The mother hangs herself, and the sister drowns herself in a well.

This story must have haunted Camus, leading him to develop the theme further beyond its brief mention in the novel, adding flesh and blood to create a complete three-act play: the returning traveler and his long-unseen mother and sister cautiously probe each other; the traveler attempts to connect with them without revealing his identity; the unsuspecting mother and sister resolve to kill for money, but to avoid the pangs of conscience, they refuse to get to know the traveler better. Amidst multiple misunderstandings, the mother and daughter drug their own kin, seize the money, and drown him in the river...

This story pierced Camus's heart, stemming from his fear during his migration from North Africa to France, and from the guilt of leaving his mother in Algiers to go to Paris. He once wrote that for a child like himself, his entire perception of life was defined by his relationship with his mother. Because The Misunderstanding held such significant meaning for Camus, he wrote about it in two works, but presented it using different approaches: in The Stranger, the protagonist Meursault is accused by the prosecutor and media of virtually murdering his mother, while in The Misunderstanding, the story features a mother killing her son. These two mirroring sides demonstrate Camus's best examples of contemplating the absurd human condition.

The Misunderstanding is a self-defining work by Camus, an important creation he felt compelled to write, and the simplest yet most profound dialectic for entering Camus's realm of absurd thought.