Deborah Garwood

‘The Stranger’ and The Sun

Abstract

Albert Camus’s novel L’Etranger (The Stranger) is set in French colonial Algeria. It was first published in 1942, and in 1957 earned for Camus the Nobel Prize for Literature. Throughout the novel, the sun’s brilliance and heat vividly affect all of the characters, but protagonist Meursault is most susceptible. The sun literally arcs over his life from the moment of his mother’s death to subsequent events that improbably lead to his execution. This paper will focus on the prominence of the sun and sky as agents of plot, and as motifs associated with Camus’s deep ties to French colonial Algeria. The theme of French solar astronomy will be suggested as supplemental context for the novel.

Biography

Deborah Garwood is an interdisciplinary artist born in Camden, NJ, and based in New York, NY. Active also as an independent scholar and arts writer, Ms. Garwood's first book of photographs, Evans Pond: A Long-term Study of a Single Place was published by Hunter&Co. of Haddonfield, NJ in June 2009.