Coping or Psychotic?

When first perusing The Stranger by Albert Camus, my most immediate observation was that Monsieur Meursault did not comment or react to anything that he noticed in an emotional way. Does he not feel or are his feelings just not recorded in the text? Not only are any emotions absent, but even his comments to the other characters other slightly sadistic. He doesn't seem to feel anything at all. There has been not one mention of him laughing, and he seems to be almost rejoicing after his mother's funeral. At first I agreed with some of the people who in our class discussion thought that this was a coping mechanism for dealing with his mother's death. However, after looking at all the other examples I started to think that he really is incapable of feeling anything else. He flat out told Marie that he didn't love her when she asked, and implied that he didn't even think it mattered or cared about love. He didn't seem bothered by either the beating of Raymond's female acquaintance or Salamano's spaniel. However, in the same way that Jake attracted people to him, so does Meursault. People seem drawn to him, such as Marie and Raymond, even though he never engages with anyone, even a passing soccer team.  He seems not able to have an emotional connection with anyone, in a very psychopathic way.

The weird thing is, in light of recent events, his entire persona changed. He becomes angry for the first time, and was practically unprovoked. Was it just the heat? I know this whole time he has been complaining about the heat, and it seems to be the one thing that he actually has a strong opinion of. I'm going to be really interested to see how he cope with this, because this killing someone would seem more traumatizing than the death of his mother. He is going to have to actually face emotions fro the first time in the novel, (I presume, anyway, because eh can[t just say "hey whatever I don't care" when trying to cover up a murder or go to jail). it's going to be interesting got find out.