Camus's theme is “the sauveur manqué, a savior who fails because of his inability to speak a clear language to those he would save”.[5]
Le Malentendu “depicts the destruction of a family fatally incapable of communicating with each other”.[6] Jan does not heed his wife Maria when she advises him to introduce himself plainly. His sister Martha accepts nothing but impersonal communication. Mother is too weary to respond to Jan's hints.
The play contrasts the love between Jan and his wife with the absence of love from his sister and mother. Mother's suicide when she realises her crime deprives Martha of the maternal love she also needs. Maria's wish for divine love is also denied.
“One of the most important themes is the impossibility of attaining happiness”.[2] Despite the success of his marriage, Jan cannot be happy in exile, but wishes to return to his family and be happy together. Martha also longs to be somewhere else, and Mother longs for peace, but these desires are only met in death.
The misunderstandings and lack of comprehension that thwart these desires illustrate Camus’ philosophy of the Absurd. These difficulties create the drama – Jan's choice to conceal his identity, Martha's insistence on impersonal conventions, her misinterpretation of his determination to stay, Maria's bewildered response to her cold confession, and the Old Man's indifference.
When Camus revised the play in 1958, he added or modified four very short incidents to transform the indifference of the Old Man into something more sinister. For example, he distracts Martha when she is about to check Jan's passport. Camus aimed to “intensify the effect of unrelieved metaphysical blackness, culminating in the very last crushing syllable of the play: ‘Non!””.[2]
The play expresses an antipathy to religion, but also a strong concern with religious ideas, including the parable of the prodigal son. “Camus had never cut himself off from conversation with Christian thinkers but stood in a relation of tension to Christianity”.[7]
The return of Jan from happiness in Africa to a murderous home, and the yearning of Martha to be in the sun, reflect an antithesis between Northern Europe and the Mediterranean, which informs all of Camus’ work.[2]
