The Presence of Heat, or, This Book Should Have Been Called The Sun Also Rises Because Of How Large A Part The Sun Plays
I’m sure you all have heard me rant about this in class, but you’re on my blog, so too bad. I’ll yell about it again. There are deep, though not obvious, connections between every one of Meursault’s “emotional’ moments (or where they would have been if the man had feelings) and the main one is heat. You’d think this guy is running a fever from how often he talks about being painfully hot, or maybe I’m just projecting my low heat tolerance on him. Whatever it is, I’m going to talk about it. Buckle up and listen.
This parallel is actually drawn by the man himself, on page 58, while he stands looking at the Arab man: “The sun was the same as it had been the day I'd buried Maman, and like then, my forehead especially was hurting me, all the veins in it throbbing under the skin” (Camus). He goes on to describe how the light flashing off of the knife combined with the sweat dripping down his eyebrows obscured his vision (and by extension, his mind). He is under considerable stress here, in direct sunlight, holding a man at gunpoint (actually, I don’t ever think we see Meursault raising the gun, but that’s beside the point) and in lieu of deciding whether or not to shoot, he’s feeling the heat around him. Similarly, at the funeral, when he walks with the procession, instead of grieving his mother, he is thinking about how hot it is.
I suspect that the amplification of heat is analogous to the welling up of emotions that most people would experience in similar situations. We have seen how concerningly neutral and logical Meursault is, so it seems fitting that instead of something fickle and intangible like emotions, he would be subjected to heat, something he knows well and understands the cause of. His given cause of “the sun” seems laughable at first glance, but taking into account his previous experience at the funeral and his apparent lack of response in general (other than annoyance) it does seem the most plausible explanation, with both a logical (the sun blinded him, the heat made it difficult to think) and an illogical (the sun is an extension of the distress he is unable to feel) elaboration.
I do think that the sun plays a rather important role in this novel. I thought your point on how heat is something that he is familiarized with and understands the cause of, which could be a default instead of him feeling emotions was a new interpretation that I hadn't thought of before.
ReplyDeleteI really like the point about how the sun is most noticed by Meursault during moments of stress. Because Meursault is normally so distanced from the world around him it feels like during moments of intense emotions he comes closer to the real world and actually notices the heat and light of the sun.
ReplyDeleteI guess your point could be interpreted in two ways: he is repressing emotion and it is being released through sun angst or that like how humans become overcome with emotion, the sun overcomes him with anger. I wouldn't say that Meursault is compensating for his emotions through his anger directed at the heat. I mean if we take a look at the beach death scene, the quote that the sun was the same as the sun on "the day I'd buried Maman" could be interpreted that the sun is somehow associated with death but not necessarily emotion. If Meursault basically originally established as emotionless, why would we assume that he is just releasing repressed emotions through sun angst? I guess that would be like us trying to fit him somehow into the mould of a "normal" person which he isn't. If the amplification of heat is like how people get emotionally overwhelmed, why aren't we told of Meursault's anger towards the sun while he swims? Also, we can probably assume that Meursault has been living in Algeria for quite some time and presumably, the sun isn't getting hotter and hotter. I think that the only real commonality between sun and occurence is the one between the heat and death (his mother, the Arab, his own).
ReplyDeleteThe more I think about it, it's funny that a guy who is so sensitive to heat and sunlight would choose to live in Algiers, where there tends to be a lot of sun and heat (it being North Africa and all). When his manager suggests that he move to Paris and accept a promotion, Meursault demurs, insisting that one place is the same as another, and at the same time, Paris is damp and dark.
ReplyDeleteBut clearly one place is not the same as another--it's hard to imagine the sun having this much of an effect on him in cloudy Paris. And if we go with Meursault's go-to remark that one "gets used to anything eventually," it seems as if he hasn't yet gotten used to the sun in Algiers. But maybe the point is that this sensitivity to heat and light first emerges after his mother's death, and it therefore could reflect a kind of sublimated emotional response.