Violent Euphoria
The Relationship Between Albert Camus's The Stranger and Edvard Munch's The Scream
A sense of madness overtakes Meursault the moment before he becomes a murderer. With his hand on the trigger of his gun, Meursault's awareness of his surroundings heighten to the point that even the tiniest drop of sweat becomes a waterfall, and a single ray of sunlight becomes an inferno. And in that second that the bullet is fired, "It [seems] as if the sky split open from one end to the other to rain down fire” (Camus 69). Meursault's world is dyed blood-red as he "[knocks] four quick times on the door of unhappiness" (Camus 69).
Edvard Munch seeks to capture this moment of twisted rhapsody through his famed painting The Scream. There are four different versions of this composition, which depict an androgynous figure on a bridge with an anguished expression being approached by two shady figures from behind, all against a vivid red-orange sky that serves as a backdrop. Munch also hand-painted a poem onto the frame of the 1985 pastel version of The Scream, describing his inspiration for the painting:
“I was walking along the road with two Friends / the Sun was setting – The Sky turned a bloody red / And I felt a whiff of Melancholy – I stood / Still, deathly tired – over the blue-black / Fjord and City hung Blood and Tongues of Fire / My Friends walked on – I remained behind / – shivering with Anxiety – I felt the great Scream in Nature – EM.”
Although there had been a sense of peace throughout the whole day, the insanity of the sun and the universe overtakes Meursault's sense of reason at the exact moment when he pulls the trigger, and, in a matter of seconds, Meursault breaks the harmony of reality. It is as if an infinite, blood-red shriek pierces through the air, stabbing into every existing being, and the world is frozen in a neverending, violent euphoria. Somewhere faraway, a man is screaming on a bridge, never to escape the instant that the illusion of peace is shattered.
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