Raymond is such a creepy guy. Let's just face it, he's a total creep. He lives off of women, in more ways than one. He's a pimp, so his job and how he earns a living is based off of women, selling and advertising them more specifically. But the focus goes beyond his job. Raymond had a mistress, a Moorish woman, whom Raymond suspected of cheating and thus decides it's right for him to beat her and make her suffer.
Now let's pause here for a minute. There is absolutely no proof whatsoever that Raymond's mistress actually did cheat on him. All we have is his word. It could be that Raymond's mistress didn't realize she was "monogamous" or whatever with Raymond, and thought she had more sexual freedom. Or maybe she was actually one of Raymond's women from his job, so she had to be with other men to make a living. Or it could be that she didn't cheat at all, and Raymond just made the whole thing up! I can totally see that happening. Raymond doesn't strike me as a guy who has respect for women, which explains both his job and how he deals with his mistress. I mean, he has this whole plan to lure her back to him with a seductive letter, written by Meursault and not him interestingly enough, only to beat her. He's like an abusive Don Juan. You'd think that after having been hurt the first time around, his mistress wouldn't return to him. You'd think she'd know better. But she doesn't. She returns to Raymond, just as he planned, and the abuse is hard to miss.
What amazes me is how he gets away with it all. First off, Raymond has to have some sort of charisma to not only make Meursault write the letter for him but to make it convincing enough to have his mistress return. I would have to think that Raymond dictates the letter to Meursault to write, though it's not really that clear, because Meursault doesn't strike me as the seducing type, despite his swims with Marie. Then, his words must've been pretty convincing to make his mistress return to him. Then what happens? Raymond beats his mistress up in a public place, with many witnesses, and doesn't suffer for it at all! Once again, Meursault acts as Raymond's "pal" and covers for him with the police, but even the police fall under Raymond's charismatic spell. They take his story about how his mistress was cheating on him as a perfectly good and plausible explanation for the beating. That just really blows my mind. How is infidelity a good reason for abuse? It's so sexist too, because if Raymond's mistress had beaten him up for cheating on her, you can tell that she would be the one off to jail immediately. However, if Raymond says that it was his mistress who was cheating and that's why he beat her, then he gets off without a hitch, and an almost nod to his masculinity from the police. And that's just sickening. What's even more sickening is the fact that this not only happened in the 1940's, but still happens today. But that's a different subject all together.
Moving on to Raymond's finest achievement in the entire novel: getting away with murder.
Ok, ok I know what you're going to say. Raymond didn't actually murder anybody. True, yes, I will agree with you there. But he definitely had a hand in it. He got Meursault involved in his problems with the Arabs, and not just involved by Raymond telling him about the issues, oh no Raymond has Meursault armed and ready to fight the Arabs with him! Meursault doesn't really care about anything, and so Raymond is able to once again charismatically manipulate him into always coming to his rescue and taking his side of the story. Though Raymond did not shoot the Arab, Meursault shot him with Raymond's gun, and in a way was simultaneously ridding Raymond of his problem while also taking the blame for it. The Arab is dead, and Raymond is free to live a happy, womanizing life in the world with no threat of jail time. Meursault gets all the blame, and to me it seems like it's all Raymond's fault. He's an accomplice to the murder, definitely, but once again he gets away with it.
1 comment:
Wow, yeah, I agree with everything you say about Raymond. He certainly seems as guilty of murder in spirit as Meursault does in body (and M. does present it as a *bodily* reaction to intense sun). But if we look at the novel's real critical gaze as directed to the French-colonial society itself, engaging questions of who has the right to judge, etc., the fact that the law seems to pretty much sanction, or turn a blind eye toward, Raymond's horrific behavior certainly detracts from the court's moral outrage at Meursault's detachment. The police are complicit in his domestic violence, and maybe by extension his indirect violence toward his mistress's brother and his cronies. (And remember, the court never seems all that concerned with the victim of Meursault's crime--it seems more like an excuse to try to bring *him* into line.)
I find Raymond a confusing and frustrating element of this novel. I'm generally sympathetic to Camus's challenge to our reflexive judgment of others, as we're usually congratulating ourselves for being "normal" when we condemn others for being "weird" or "wrong." But his plot to "deal with" his mistress is so awful on so many levels, it really challenges my own high-minded "let's not judge" approach. I certainly hope and expect that I *would* judge in such a case, that I would never align myself with such a person (and the Nazi-collaborator analogy is apt here--Camus himself didn't agree with neutrality). Very confusing. I guess I just see this as an example of Muersault as an extreme "test case": his neutrality is so much further than most would be willing or able to go.
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