A Glance at “Whiteness” in Melville and Camus

Extract

In “journey to consciousness: The Symbolic Pattern of Camus's L'Etranger” (PMLA, lxxix, 321–328), William M. Manly points out in what ways the qualities of “whiteness” and “light” lend symbolic expression to Meursault's perceptions of a negative existence and of death itself (see pp. 322–324), and reaches the conclusion that “it would appear that not only the sun, but (as the white glare of the mortuary suggests) ‘lumière’ in general is employed by Camus in a recurrent pattern which in moments of crisis is highly symbolic (p. 324). Certainly, ”whiteness“ and ”light“ are qualities closely related in their effects on the perceiver, and which appear in L'Etranger as elements of the landscape.