The Misunderstanding was written in the year 1943. This play is about the absurdity of communication which may affect human’s relations and their interactions with each other. Though this play was viewed as a bleaker one by critics, Camus did not agree with them and said:
“When the tragedy is done, it would be incorrect to think that this play argues for submission to fate. On the contrary, it is a play of revolt, perhaps even containing a moral of sincerity.”
In brief this play is about a family in which there is a mother, a daughter, a son and his wife. The son leaves his family very early for better shores and does not return for some 20 years. The mother and daughter start providing lodgings to travelers to earn their living. The son, after his return, resolves to hide his identity initially to get to know them better. What he doesn’t know or possibly could have never imagined is that his mother and sister are engaged in murdering their lodgers for money. He has to pay for concealing this information by his life. He is eventually murdered by his own family. The inspiration for this play was an actual murder Camus came to know about from a newspaper.
The thing which startled me about the play was the indifference with which both mother and daughter killed the travelers, and more than that, the daughter’s notion that the money they hence raised could help them in living a good life away from that country of cold clouds. They carried out murders in cold blood though they thought of living in a land of sunshine near the sea. Towards the end when they come to know of their victim’s identity, it is the mother who is filled with sorrow and repentance but Martha still remains indifferent.
Martha, the daughter, is the one who comes closer to being an absurd character in this work. When Camus calls this play, a play of revolt, he is perhaps talking about Martha’s conviction of the absurdness of existence. She says to Maria (Jan’s wife):
Understand that neither for him or for us, either in life or in death, is there homeland or any peace. (With a scornful laugh) Isn’t it true, for one can’t call home this deep earth, deprived of light where one goes to nourish blind animals.
MARIA: (in tears) Oh, my God! I cannot, I cannot bear this language. He wouldn’t have put up with it either. It’s for the sake of another fatherland that he set out.
MARTHA: (who has reached the door, turns round sharply) This foolishness has received its pay. You’ll soon receive yours. (With the same laugh) We are robbed, I tell you that. What is the good of this great calling of existence, this alarm of souls? Why cry out about the sea or about love? That is mockery. Your husband now knows the answer; that appalling house where we’ll finally be squeezed, everyone against each other. (With hatred) You will know it too, and if you were able to then, you’d recollect with delight this day which you still believe to be entry into the most harrowing of exiles. Understand that your grief will never match the injustice done to mankind. And to conclude, listen to my advice. I rightly owe you a piece of advice, don’t you think, since I’ve killed your husband. Pray to your God that he makes you like stone. It’s the happiness that he takes for himself; it’s the only true happiness. Act like him; make yourself deaf to all cries. Go back to stone while there’s still time for it. But if you feel too cowardly to enter into this silent peace, then come to join us in our town house. Farewell, my sister! Everything is easy, you see. You have to choose between the stupid happiness of stones and the slimy bed where we wait for you.
But in calling this play as a moral of sincerity, Camus perhaps emphasizes upon the necessity of clear communication. Since he believed that words and actions should be consistent with one another, if they are not, misunderstandings tend to grow, affecting the ethics of communication and in turn affecting human interactions.