Camus and ‘Mediterranean Thought’: Meursault’s Revolt

Abstract

In his travel diaries, published in France in 1978, Albert Camus draws parallels between his experiences in the United States and Brazil, ultimately favoring the authenticity and vitality of the southern nation. The French Algerian author finds in the tropical landscape a space that challenges the rationalism of the North, a subterranean force that also seems to shape the architecture of the senses in his homeland, Algeria. Both in the essays of Nuptials at Tipasa (1936) and in the fiction of The Stranger (1942), Camus develops the idea of a ‘Mediterranean thought’, in which sensuality and a deep connection with nature emerge as an epistemological alternative to European rationalist order. This article analyzes excerpts from Camus’s diaries, his early writings, and selected philosophical texts, as well as the construction of the narrative arc of his most well-known character, Meursault, in order to reveal the enduring presence of this sensual and visceral thread in the fictional and philosophical development of a gnosiology rooted in earth and sunlight.