The
author of The Stranger, Albert Camus,
expresses the ideals of Absurdism through Mersault’s relationship to the
external world. The symbolic relationship between Mersault and the sun that
shadows him is a prime example of how Camus deliberately expresses the ideals
of Absurdism. Mersault associates his attitude towards the external world
through the symbolic representation of the sun, where the sun’s heat
“Was
pressing down on me and making it hard for me to go on. And every time I felt a
blast of its hot breath strike my face, I gritted my teeth, clenched my fists
in my trouser pockets, and strained every nerve in order to overcome the sun
and the thick drunkenness it was spilling over me” (Camus 57).
Mersault’s attitude is clear based on
the sun’s continuous glaring stare, yet his unsolvable attitude seems to be
true based on why Mersault cannot compose himself. The unbearable heat causes
him to battle with the external world in the sense that Mersault cannot
maintain his composer while faced with external aspects in the world. He strictly
emphasizes on his own one-sided beliefs rather than showing any expression to
the outer world. A world exists inside Mersault’s mind in which it ultimately
conflicts him to reside into an isolated state in the external world.
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