Bad Weather In The Stranger, By Albert Camus

The mood is depressing and saddening and feels hopeless, even at the resolution of the book. While there are no quotes referencing the atmosphere, there are heavy allusions made to rain and snow and cold, which I take to represent sadness, bitterness and hopelessness. However the one quote that stood out to me was that on page 60 where upon Holden asking where the fish go when the lake freeze over, the cab driver says he doesn't know and doesn't care. While seemingly unimportant I think the author used this quote to represent society's indifference towards the struggles of others, Holden being the fish and the ice being his

In the first paragraph of the passage by Joan Didion, she emplies the Santa Ana winds have a negative effect on people. After her telling us what the winds are, she writes, “The baby frets. The maid sulks.” That automatically tells us the winds don’t only effect the environment, but it has a direct effect on humans. She uses words like, “unnatural stillness,” “uneasy,” and “tension,” to support her attitude toward the winds. Her choice of words sets the tone of the passage very early and continues to support the tone throughout the entire passage. When she decided to write, “To live with the Santa Ana is to accept, consciously or unconsciously, a deeply mechanistic view of human behavior,” it seemed to take her tone a step further. Simply

It isn't difficult to see how the changing climates affect the characters’ moods as well. Many of the squabbles between Jim and Antonia and hardships faced by the two families occur in the fall or winter, whereas the author focuses on the more pleasant aspects of life and the prairie when the weather is glowing. The very lives of the men and women on the frontier are almost entirely dictated by the world surrounding them. They learn to live by the months and the weather, and develop symbiotic relationships with the land they till. As proved in the novel through the characters, the more work man puts into the earth, the greater reward he will receive.

When the stranger describes the weather the descriptions makes him seem more like an outsider because the Natives do not know the difference between Canadian and European weather making it illogical for the Natives to describe the weather in the way the stranger describes the weather. During the summer months the stranger’s word choices change from harsh words such as “violent” to relaxing words such as “passion” and “lovely” (16-19). The change in word choice indicates that the stranger is feeling more comfortable and accepting of his surroundings. Not only does the stranger’s feelings towards his environment change but LePan’s feelings towards the stranger changes as well. There is no evident emotion in the poem from LePan towards the stranger until LePan refers to the stranger as a “passionate man” who must travel across the fire-ridden land (20). At this point in the poem the stranger is desperate to find a spiritual connection believing he will find “sanctities of childhood” (23) and “a golden-haired Archangel” (28), but in reality all he finds is chaos and destruction. The stranger is so preoccupied with his own ideals of spiritual connection and religion that he is oblivious to the Native’s spirit: the manitou. The stranger sees the manitou as merely a clumsy, dirty, unsteady carving made by the savages (34-36). If the stranger became more accepting and

Joan Didion uses pathos to argue that Santa Ana causes people to have weird behaviors. When Joan uses the example that the “Indians would throw themselves into the sea,”(Didion) she creates the emotion of sadness and shock. Didion chose these emotions to show that the wind makes people do strange actions. She also says that, “every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands necks. Anything can happen.”(Didion) She causes a sense of horror using the excerpt from, “On nights like that” by Raymond Chandler. It gives a sense of horror because it shows how far the wind can make people do bad actions when the wind blows. Joan Didion incorporates

Since an audience can relate to their fellow man, they read the uncomfortable and irritable feelings that come with these reactions. Didion names those around her—the reclusive neighbor, the sulking maid, the desperate Indians, even herself— and all respond negatively to the Santa Ana winds. “I...lie down, given over to whatever is in the air,” Didion gives in. All in the path of the winds, no matter their age, sex, or time of being alive, are affected by their hot gusts. Perhaps one reason these winds are such a bane is that they put man, who suffers from fatigue, stress, and irritability at times, back in his

As explained in Chapter 10 of HTRL, when a story has a setting, that weather is also part of the setting. The weather can not only affect a person’s mood, but it can also play a remarkable part in establishing the atmosphere of a novel. Edwards utilizes this concept and the first example is seen towards the beginning of the book, when David Henry is speedily driving his wife, Norah, to the hospital as she is about to go in to labor, an unexpected snowstorm, creating an intense mood and foreshadowing a clean but rather gloomy future, reaches suburb. The couple soon arrives at the hospital and since David is a doctor, he

In Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton uses light/dark and warm/cold imagery to indicate the emotional sense of comfort or lack thereof is associated with observable experiences in daily life. In general, it is more satisfying to be in a well-lit, warm space; there is no fear of what lurks in the shadows and the temperature is pleasurable. Meanwhile, dark, cold environments invoke a sense of apprehension and discomfort. Ethan’s saw mill is said to “[gloom] through the night,” and his landscape is described as “grey and lonely” (Wharton 20). The dark, barren landscape symbolizes Ethan’s disgust with the life he leads, also comparing the unavoidable winter to the permanence of his life in Starkfield.

Life can be strenuous and arduous. Throughout history, humans struggle to develop a perfect relationship because of various personality traits, virtues, and habits. These interactions have inspired many authors and film directors to depict mood disparately. In many instances, weather becomes a foundation to intensify tension and direct the audience towards a particular mood. For example, in Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, the menacing storm portrays Maxim’s anger and distraught with Rebecca’s pregnancy and infidelity.

In The Stranger, author Albert Camus involves the sun throughout the novel in order to display mans vulnerability. He presents the sun as a powerful, unfortunate influence on main character, Meursault and describes him as a simple minded, easily influenced, mellow individual. The Main influence in Meursaults’ life is the sun. Meursault is bothered by it however he does not make much of an attempt to stop or ignore it. He simply permits the suns heat, accepting it and affirms his personality. Becoming vulnerable is basic however with a more vigorous charisma, persuasion can be avoided. However an able source such as the sun, Camus establishes is a little more difficult to avoid.

Death is the only certainty everyone will die regardless of everything. The Stranger by Albert Camus relies on death to show the degradation of Meursault's , the main character , absurdist beliefs throughout the novel with a sudden revitalization at the end. Through Meursault’s encounters with death at different points in the novel the author Camus conveys to his readers how death or coming to accept death allows a person to accept their beliefs while living yet not accepting death causes people to contradict their beliefs. In the novel, Meursault experiences the funeral of his mother, trail for the murder of an arab, and himself being condemned to death thus these events in the novel allows to Camus expresses his message about death.

Many people often base their opinions on a person by judging his whole life in general and his attitude towards life without caring about who the person really is deep down inside. This unfair reasoning can occur in the courtroom when people are put on trial and the judge and the jury must delve into the life of the accused and determine if he is a hazard to society. Occasionally, the judge and jury are too concerned with the accused’s past that they become too biased and give an unfair conviction and sentencing. In his novel, The Stranger, Albert Camus uses the courtroom as a symbol to represent society that judges the main character, Meursalt, unfairly to illustrate how society forms opinions based on one’s past.

distant at his mother’s funeral and he was distant with Marie and he was distant with the

The novel The Stranger, by Albert Camus, translated by Matthew Ward, follows the story of a man, Meursault, and how his emotionless way of living and his one grave mistake ends up killing him through a court of law. Throughout his journey, there is tension in him, and between him and other people and groups. This tension is represented throughout this novel with the motif is heat. And as tension can grow and is part of everyday life, it is part of Meursault’s as well. Furthermore, through tension and it growing, it can result in a conflict of multiple varieties. This motif comes up at scenes such as the trial in the courtroom, the conflict on the beach with the Arabs, and the magistrate and his heated argument. And due to Camus specific placement of the motif during these scenes, it also foreshadows conflict and trouble throughout the novel. Camus’ motif of heat shows a tension between opposing sides to foreshadow various types of conflict which demonstrate the theme that tension leads to conflict.

Widely recognized for philosophical writings as a French essayist and playwright, Albert Camus is a major contributor to exploring the absurd in modern Western literature. Characterized by highlighting the human condition, Camus’ writing style focuses on the everyday lives and inner psyche of individuals in both ordinary and extraordinary circumstances. Such a character-driven writing style is most notably displayed in his 1946 work, The Stranger, a tale of an emotionally-detached man known as Meursault, who lives in French-colonized Algiers during the intermission of the two World Wars. Consisting of two parts—The Stranger first explores his daily life as a free man, and in the second, delves more into the character’s own philosophy as Meursault contemplates during his remaining time in jail. At its core, the story explores the relationships and interactions of the odd Meursault through the character’s inner monologue and dialogue with those around him. The story itself is very ambiguous in its’ nature, and the idea of contemplating the meaning of life and purpose is prevalent throughout The Stranger. Evidently, Camus writes Meursault as a man who believes that life has no meaning, and therefore people are free to do as they please. To supplement the protagonist’s view, the author also presents Meursault alongside various personalities of key supporting characters, each with their own unique personality, and differing outlooks on life. Doing so thus enables Camus to get readers to contemplate about meaning through multiple perspectives. Stylistically, through many devices that emphasize diction, imagery, and story themes. Ultimately, The Stranger is a way for Camus to convey that there are multiple ways to perceive the meaning of life, using Meursault to directly project a different view than what readers are used to. Surely, with the intent of crafting a protagonist so strange, that Meursault becomes comparable to other characters; less so as a reflection of what the author personally believes the meaning of life is, but more of what such exploration of the idea could be.