| dc.description.abstract | In the first lines of Albert Camus’s Carnets, the author acknowledged that the feeling towards his mother constituted all his sensibility, and opined that it should all be expressed through mother and son. The motif of L’Envers et l’endroit and the last work of Camus’ semi-autobiography, Le Premier homme, is a silent mother sitting next to the window and looking through it to the street outside. Camus borrowed his own mother’s image to portrait a symbolic character in his oeuvre. Nevertheless, we have to distinguish Camus’ mother and the maternal characters due to the fact that the latter encompasses diverse characteristics. Thus, within the context of Camusian image of mothers, the aim of this thesis is to examine the images of mothers in five works of Camus, including L’Envers et l’endroit (1937) (notamment « Entre oui et non »), L’Étranger (1942), Le Malentendu (1944), La Peste (1947) et Le Premier homme (1994) respectively. The focus will be on six dual factors of maternal image, encompassing silence / creation, absence / presence, and oblivion / memory. Moreover, we analyze the metaphors mainly related to the Bible which Camus used in works, including Mary, mother of Jesus, Jesus of Nazareth, and the Parable of the Prodigal Son, and examine the image of mothers in the context of Camusian Christianism. Finally, divided by three successive stages that Camus planned his oeuvre, the Absurd, Revolt and Love, the images of mother are gradually recast throughout the development. This thesis hopes to explicate the ultimate meaning of maternal image in the oeuvre of Camus under the influence of History. | en_US |