In Camus’s works, we see an obsession with the human mouth, especially mouths that are smiling or laughing. Often, the smiles and laughter are juxtaposed with gravity and violence. Here we take a look at how Camus uses the mouth, smiling or grave (and, bizarrely, sometimes both at the same time), in order to explore his recurrent themes.
Theme: The Absurd
An author’s theme can be understood as the main idea they wish to explore in their work. Often this is an abstract idea. For Albert Camus, the theme he returns to again and again in his literature is the idea of the absurd.
The absurd is a complex philosophical concept most commonly associated with existentialism, particularly in the work of Albert Camus. However, it is important to remember that Camus did not invent the idea and that other philosophers have different conceptions of the absurd. Here, we are only interested in Camus’s conception of the absurd and how he uses the idea in his philosophy and literature.
Put as simply as possible, when we talk about ‘the absurd’ (as understood by Camus), we are referring to the unsettling discovery that life itself might be meaningless. We must be absolutely clear here about something: we are talking about life itself being meaningless and not the lives of any particular individuals.
Things will hopefully become clearer when we see that Camus is responding to an idea from Greek Mythology: the so-called ‘wisdom of Silenus.’
Silenus, an intermediary of the gods, is captured by Midas and forced to reveal his wisdom. The tragic truth he imparts is twofold: the best thing for human beings is to never have been born; failing that, the second best is to die as soon as possible. The ‘truth-bomb’ Silenus drops is that life itself is not worth having.
Nietzsche, who Camus considered his spiritual mentor and inspiration, once claimed that all of Greek mythology is aimed at countering Silenus. In The Myth of Sisyphus, his famous essay on the absurd, Camus attempts to rework the Sisyphus myth to that end. Moreover, in all his literature, Camus explores the idea of the absurd, inspired by the tragic wisdom of Silenus, as his recurring theme.
Motifs: The Smiling Mouth
We have seen that the same theme can be explored in many different ways. Using the example of good versus evil, we briefly examined three very different works: an ancient epic, a literary classic, and a modern young adult novel. In Camus’s works, we can also see many different stories, written in many different styles, that all address the same theme of the absurd.
For example. The Stranger resembles a work of hard-boiled crime fiction: it follows a young office worker who meets a beautiful woman and ultimately murders a stranger, set in contemporary Algiers. Caligula is a play about the titular emperor set in ancient Rome. The Misunderstanding is a reversed retelling of Jesus’s parable of the Prodigal Son.
Themes do not have to recur throughout an author’s collected works. Authors can tackle a different theme and then move on with each new publication. Additionally, writers can explore multiple and overlapping themes in their works. Camus, however, is perhaps unusual amongst writers in that he meticulously planned out his works based on related themes. And for each theme, he wrote a novel, an essay, and a play.
During his lifetime, he first tackled ‘the absurd,’ then ‘rebellion,’ and planned to write about ‘love,’ but was tragically killed in a car accident before he could do so. However, it is fair to say that in all his works, Camus is in some way always exploring his first theme and major preoccupation: the absurd.
A motif is a recurring and prominent feature that recurs in a specific work. This could be a physical object, a place, or even an action. Different works, all addressing the same theme, may employ different motifs. However, one motif we see again and again in Camus’s literature is the smiling mouth.
Using the Mouth to Describe Characters
When we read descriptions of characters in Camus’s literature, we often find references to their mouths. Indeed, this happens so frequently that the curious reader must begin to wonder what Camus’s fixation is with human mouths. Let us look at some examples.
In A Happy Death, Camus’ first novel (published posthumously), the mother of the central character Patrice Mersault is described as having a ‘slack mouth.’ The women he meets in seedy Czech bars are said to have ‘wet mouths.’ Camus abandoned this novel to begin work on The Stranger. Here, the protagonist and narrator, Meursault, is a reworking of Patrice Mersault. They share many biographical details and experience some of the same events. In The Stranger, Meursault says that if he could change anything about himself, it would be to give himself a more beautiful mouth.
In the short story ‘The Adulterous Woman,’ Marcel, the husband of Janine, is described as having ‘an uneven mouth.’ In another story, ‘The Silent Ones,’ Ballester is said to have ‘a sad mouth.’ In ‘The Guest,’ the Arab prisoner has an ‘animal mouth,’ and the old gendarme Balducci has a ‘wrinkled mouth.’
In the play State of Siege, young women are described by a character that personifies the plague as being ‘fresh-mouthed.’ And in the stage directions for The Misunderstanding, Jan is repeatedly described as ‘smiling.’ In the same play, his murderous sister Martha states that she smiles only when she is alone in her room.
When Tarrou, one of the central characters of the novel The Plague, is described during his last moments, Camus’s narrator focuses his attention on the man’s smile. This is strongly reminiscent of Patrice Mersault’s death, in which he smiles throughout.
Using the Mouth to Describe Events
We can see that Camus not only uses mouths to describe people but also to describe events.
As noted above, the characters Patrice Mersault (A Happy Death) and Tarrou (The Plague) are both described by Camus as smiling at their deaths.
Patrice has developed a fatal chest infection that he knows he will not survive. He does not want to die but knows it is inevitable. What he does want is to face death head-on and be conscious of the process. During his last few days, spent sitting up in bed, looking out of the window in the company of his wife, Lucienne, and the doctor, Patrice is frequently described as smiling. At the point of death, he looks out of the window, past his wife, and sees the world smiling back at him.
Curiously, the event that takes place before Patrice becomes gravely ill is a midnight swim. In the water, he has a revelatory experience in which he is symbolically reborn. Immediately afterwards, he falls ill. When Camus describes Patrice entering the water, he says the sea is like ‘a warm mouth.’
Tarrou also does not want to die. He contracts the plague and knows that he will not survive. Unlike Patrice, he does not want to face death consciously so much as he wants to face it with dignity and without fear. As such, he forces a smile whenever the doctor (and book’s narrator) enters his room. When Tarrou finally succumbs, Dr. Rieux says he “had in front of him just a still mask from which the smile had faded.”
Something interesting we see with Camus’s description of Tarrou is the idea of a face that isn’t smiling yet seems to be smiling. This idea appears elsewhere in his literature. In A Happy Death, two female friends of Patrice are said to have “grave smiling faces.” An expression cannot be both grave and smiling.
Smiling Unsmiling Faces
In The Stranger, there is a curious scene in which Meursault is staring at a reflection of himself. He is in prison awaiting trial after killing an Arab man and looking at himself in his metal dinner plate. Meursault says, “It seemed as if my reflection remained grave even when I tried to smile at it. I moved it about in front of me. I was smiling, but my face still had the same sad, harsh expression.”
Like the women in A Happy Death, Meursault has a grave face which is described as smiling. Interestingly, in the lyrical essay ‘Between Yes and No,’ Camus reminisces about his mother and says, “though her lips do not move her face lights up in a beautiful smile.” Just as one cannot have a grave expression and smile at the same time, it is impossible to smile without moving one’s lips.
In this idea that people can be at once smiling and grave, happy and sad, Camus refers to a kind of double expression. This is mentioned explicitly in his last fictional work to be published in his lifetime. Thus, in The Fall, the protagonist Jean-Baptiste Clamence looks at himself in the mirror and says, “My face smiled back at me from the mirror, but it seemed to me that the smile was double …” This experience happens to Clamence after he hears a strange laugh coming not from anyone in particular but almost as if from the universe itself.
Smiling and Violence
We have just considered grave and unhappy smiles. Camus also uses the idea of mouths and smiling juxtaposed with often extreme violence. For example, the captive missionary in the short story ‘The Renegade’ has his tongue cut out, and before that, his mouth is tortured. The character, who is also the narrator (ironic since he has no tongue), describes his mother as someone who “sometimes smiled at me.” When, in the name of evil, he shoots and kills the missionary sent to replace him, he also smashes the butt of his rifle into the man’s smile.
Raymond in The Stranger is slashed in the mouth. He boasts to Meursault after winning a fight with the Arab who has followed him to the beach to settle a score. The man pulls a knife and cuts Raymond’s mouth. This precipitates the events that follow, leading Meursault to commit murder and be on trial for his life. In court, much will be made of his behavior during his mother’s funeral. At the beginning of the novel, when Meursault is sitting in vigil over his mother’s coffin with her friends and the elderly residents of the care home, he is distracted by their mouths and the noises they make.
In the First Man, Camus’s semi-autobiographical novel, there is a gruesome flashback scene involving a dead body that has been mutilated: “His throat had been cut and that ghastly swelling in his mouth was his entire sexual organ.”
What these shocking scenes reveal, along with all the other numerous references to the human mouth, most commonly associated with smiles and laughter, is a powerful recurring motif in Camus’s work that merits further investigation. As yet, there is no major study of Camus and intriguing obsession with mouths and smiling.
