[1] The underlying theme of these stories is human loneliness and feeling foreign and isolated in one's own society.

[2] Camus writes about outsiders living in Algeria who straddle the divide between the Muslim world and France.

[3] These works of fiction cover the whole variety of existentialism, or absurdism, as Camus himself insisted his philosophical ideas be called.

The clearest manifestation of the ideals of Camus can be found in the story "La Pierre qui pousse."

In the Silent Men, Camus reveals his understanding of the life of lower class laborers.