Existential “Character-Ideas" In Camus' The Misunderstanding

Abstract

EACH OF THE FIVE CHARACTERS IN Albert Camus' The Misunderstanding serves, I believe, as an embodiment of some aspect of Camus' thought. Though these characters do not personify abstractions in any clear-cut and well defined manner, as might be the case in allegory, yet the reader can arrive at some fairly decisive conclusions as to the existentialist symbolism involved. The characters seem not to be designed as living individuals so much as vehicles to express the ideas of the author; one might, indeed, call them existential "Character- Ideas.