In the novel, The Stranger, the sun symbolizes multiple things. It symbolizes warmth and comfort yet also symbolizes pain. The sun symbolized comfort when he was on the beach with Marie and “the combined warmth from her body and from the sun made [him] doze off” (51). The comfort is halted by the piercing light reflected from the Arabs knife. The unbearable discomfort influenced Meursault to use the gun to shoot the Arab. He was influenced by physical discomfort. After shooting the Arab once, he “fired four more times at the motionless body” (59) because, according to Camus’ existential philosophy, it does not matter whether he shot him once or four times because the Arab was dead regardless. The four extra shorts were not done out of panic