The book "The Outsider" written by Albert Camus tells the story of a man named Meursault who lives in French Algiers. Meursault is an observer and rarely a participant. I believe that this helped seal his fate. .
There are many examples in the book where Meursault has observed rather than participate. One of these examples is crying at his mothers" funeral. At the funeral he watches others mourn rather than mourning himself. Meursault feels that death is just a part of life, you live and then you die. Meursaults reaction to his mothers" death was an important part of the trial where the jury did judge his reaction as cold hearted and callous, and therefore making him capable of murder. .
Meursault meets a girl named Marie whom throughout the book he spends a lot of time with. Rather than participating in love he observes it. Meursault is more affected by the physical side of love rather than the emotional side. In the book Marie asks him if he loves her showing that she expresses emotion there fore making her conventional. Meursault is not participating in the love of their relationship and replies, " it doesn't mean anything, but I don't think so". This is another important factor of the trial the jury judges him on his ability to care about people's feelings and emotions. This appeared to the jury that he didn't feel or care about emotion portraying him as capable of murder. .
Raymond who lives in the apartment above Meursaults has some problems with his mistress. Raymond wishes to punish her. He tells his story to Meursault and he agrees to write a letter to her, which will end with Raymond beating her. Meursault does not question the morality of the situation even though he knows someone is going to get hurt. The jury judged him on his seemingly uncaring and immoral approach to this situation. This is another trait that helped seal his fate.
Although Meursault saw no harm in how he observed situations rather than participated in them the way he treated these caused him to appear to the jury as callous, immoral, uncaring and cold hearted and there fore making him seem unconventional.