The Stranger, by Albert Camus, is an insightful novel that thoroughly examines the mind, thoughts and actions of it's main character, Meursault. Throughout the book, many ideas are suggested about the meaning of life and the absurdity of existence. Camus makes interesting use of symbols as means to foreshadow and intensify the themes of his novel. The importance of the physical world is one of the most significant themes in The Stranger. In order to convey this idea to the reader, Camus uses the sun and the heat to exemplify Meursault's greater interest in the physical than the emotional, and that there is no higher meaning to life outside of the tangible here and now.

The first instance of the imagery of the sun comes in chapter one, at Maman's funeral. Meursault says, "The sun was beginning to bear down on the earth and it was getting hotter...