Création et fonctionnement de l'atmosphère dans “Le Renégat” d'Albert Camus

Abstract

Analysis of descriptive passages in Camus's “Le Renégat” shows that the protagonist associated violence with a means of escape from his unpleasant surroundings in France. Fascinated by violence, he goes to convert the cruel inhabitants of Taghâsa. But on arriving at the town built of salt, excessively hot and violent, he is enslaved. After a time the protagonist freely adores the idol of Taghâsa, believing it to represent a universal and eternal principle of violence, thus becoming the Renegade. He kills the next Christian missionary to come to Taghâsa, but in a decor which negates, thematically, the universality and the eternity of the evil principle of violence which he adores. After this futile murder, the story ends with the Renegade's more futile repentance. The thematic structures of this short story seem to embody the same rejection of violence which can be found in the last section of L'Homme révolté. (In French)