A Black and White World
As I thought about Albert Camus’s The Stranger to figure out what this post would be about, I realized that I picture the novel in black and white. Maybe due to a subconscious association with the time period and film in the 1940s, I envisioned a grey world with only the scene with Marie in the water having any color. However, Camus does often introduce color in the novel. He describes girls in brown dresses and pink bows, the blue eyes of his mom’s caretaker, and red ties on the local boys (Camus, 6, 22). Despite Meursault’s objective details of color, the descriptions that stayed with me were the spectrums of “bright” and “dark” in the novel, fitting for an exceptionally grey character. Regardless of the moral questions surrounding his behavior, Meursault’s apathy is what translates to this lack of color. He has grey views and actions - inhuman qualities that inspire little empathy. These inhuman aspects center on Meursault's lacks . He does not hold any ground or stances and ha...