There were a lot of different passages from the book that I used in the creation of this piece of art, but these are the main ones I focused on:
Seeing the rows of cypress trees leading up to the hills next to the sky, and the houses standing out here and there against that red and green earth, I was able to understand Maman better...But today, with the sun bearing down, making the whole landscape shimmer with heat, it was inhuman and oppressive. pg 15
I felt a little lost between the blue and white of the sky and the monotony of the colors around me - the sticky black of the tar, the dull black of all the clothes, and the shiny black of the hearse. pg 17
Then there was the church and the villagers on the sidewalks, the red geraniums on the graves in the cemetery, Perez fainting (he crumpled like a rag doll), the red earth spilling over Maman's casket, the white flesh of the roots mixed in with it... pg 18
But I took a step, one step, forward. And this time, without getting up, the Arab drew his knife and held it up to me in the sun. The light shot off the steel, and it was like a long flashing blade cutting at my forehead. At the same instant the sweat in my eyebrows dripped down over my eyelids all at once and covered them with a warm, think film. My eyes were blinded behind the curtain of tears and salt. All I could feel were the cymbals of sunlight crashing on my forehead and, indistinctly, the dazzling spear flying up from the knife in front of me. The scorching blade slashed at my eyelashes and stabbed at my stinging eyes. That's when everything began to reel. The sea carried up a thick, fiery breath. It seemed to me as if the sky split open from one end to the other to rain down fire. My whole being tensed and I squeezed my hand around the revolver. pg 59
The trees standing there by the road at Maman's funeral seem to help Meursault understand his mom better, so that is why there is a tree, and it is holding him/his life up. The tree is also partially his life as well. I made sure that the sky is seen in the background, as well as the black of Meursault's suit and tie (yes, that's him in the tree). I made that a contrast, as Meursault does in the book, being lost between the colors of the sky and the black of the things around him. When they reach the church, he takes notice of everything, except Maman, so I made sure to add the part about the red geraniums on the graves. I decided that if the other graves had geraniums on them, then someone probably put flowers on Maman's grave as well, and I added that to the picture. I made it so that you can see the roots of the tree, representing the roots that he sees in the dirt of Maman's grave, even thought the roots are of a tree, and those in Maman's grave are grass or something. I spent a bit more time thinking about the end of the book to add to my drawing. The background is a beach, my idea of what the beach in the book may have looked like, and there are people there enjoying themselves. I put the ocean in the background, too, because he mentions in the book that the "sea carried up a thick, fiery breath", so I wanted to make sure that a sea was included in the drawing. The knife is in the sky, throwing off reflections of the sun (which is out of sight) onto the branch Meursault is sitting on. It is shattering the branch, just as Meursault's life and happiness was shattered (were you listening before? I told you what the tree represented!). Meursault's foundations at the base of the tree are burning and being destroyed, because his "foundations" of doing things whatever way he wants are being broken down and destroyed by his decision, and the sky splitting to rain down fire on the tree. To add to the last part of the previous sentence, the lightning bolt thing in the sky is the sky splitting open, tearing away another part of Meuarsault's life. If you look closely, though, Meursault is highlighted in black, contrasting sharply with the natural layout. He sits alone, away from everything, still holding on to the last part of his broken life: himself. And if you look even closer, you'll see a heart, outlined in black, drawn on Meursault's chest.
And half of that heart is dark.
