An outsider judges another's personality by analyzing his surroundings. Likewise, a literary author exposes deep insights and some characteristics of the narrator through the scenery. Within Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits and Albert Camus' The Stranger, the setting reflects Esteban Trueba and Meursault's personality, pressures both narrators to act a certain way, and changes the narrators' mind and thoughts.

The atmosphere around the narrator not only depicts the scenery but also describes the dominant personality traits emanating from the narrators. Depending on the location, Esteban Trueba's personality in Allende's The House of the Spirits changes constantly between two extremes. The two most important settings in The House of the Spirits are the Tres Marias hacienda and the Big House on the Corner. When Esteban first arrives at Tres Marias, the land is desolate, and the peasants do not understand Trueba's language. Since Trueba has the upper...