The Impact of the Sun on The Stranger

The setting of a novel is the context in which a story or scene occurs and includes the time, place, and social environment. It is critical for an author to have an intriguing and substantive setting as it can greatly influence the readers perspective and understanding of the story.

Throughout The Stranger, there is a multitude of different settings, environments, and physical characteristics that influence and manipulate the emotional and the physical conscious of Meursault. However, the one physical characteristic of the setting that has the most significant impact on Meursault is the sun.

The reoccurring symbol of the sun, as one might argue, has the greatest influence on Meursault. We first encounter the sun on page 15 when Meursault states, "but today, with the sun bearing down, making the whole landscape shimmer with heat, it was inhumane and oppressive." It is curious that Meursault, while walking in the procession of his mother's funeral, acknowledges the "inhumane and oppressive" nature of the sun; Camu foreshadows the influence the sun will have later on Meursault. On page 59, Meursault says, "the sun was the same it had been the day I'd buried Maman, and like then, my forehead especially was hurting me, all the veins throbbing under my skin... the trigger gave; I felt the smooth underside of the butt; and there, in that noise, sharp and deafening at the same time, is where it all started." Camu expands on his earlier allusion to the sun being "inhumane and oppressive" by describing the extreme physical manipulation the sun has on Meursault. This extreme physical manipulation drives Meursault's emotional conscious into a hallucinatory state which drives Meursault to shoot and kill the Arab man.