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In the book "A happy Death" by "Albert Camus" , what did Mersault mean when he said, 'When I look at my life and its secret colors, I feel like bursting into tears' ?

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    See A Happy Death : Summary.
    – Mauro ALLEGRANZA
    Dec 27, 2018 at 11:06
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    IMO, nothing specifically "philosophical"... Mersault expresses a sort of astonishment for the "variety" of life.
    – Mauro ALLEGRANZA
    Dec 27, 2018 at 12:34
  • Mersault is also the title character of Camus' novel L’Étranger (1942). There are common themes with the novel La mort heureuse (written between 1936 and 1938 but unpublished during Camus life).
    – Mauro ALLEGRANZA
    Dec 27, 2018 at 17:43

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I'm going to answer, despite not having read the novel, so apologies in advance! I'd guess that 'colour' is a metaphor that compares Mersault's interior life to colour, with the ground, point of comparison, being how both (colour and his ambitions etc.) add something: life's choices are not monochrome like.

Life is no one single, simple thing, but a series of tensions and dilemmas.

And perhaps, by calling them "secret", Mersault is claiming that his dilemmas are only his

The phrase "bursting into tears" is often used when happy ("I was so happy I burst into tears" is common), so it's ambiguous at least out of context whether he's sad.

The existentialist topic of the book is the "will to happiness," the conscious creation of one's happiness, and the need of time (and money) to do so.

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    i'll just delete it if not informed enough to answer
    – user35983
    Dec 27, 2018 at 15:02
  • But why he is happy after seeing life's tensions and dilemma's
    – Dikshit Gautam
    Dec 28, 2018 at 11:02
  • @DikshitGautam i've not read the book, but your question reminds of this
    – user35983
    Dec 28, 2018 at 12:09

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