The Fall (La Chute) — Literature Analysis
The Fall by Albert Camus (1956) is his last complete work which proves to be one of his finest works of fiction. This novel is a masterpiece of symbolism. This novel is his exploration of the human condition with the brutal honesty of Jean Baptiste Clemence a self-proclaimed judge-penitent in the Amsterdam Bar called Mexico City and the novel consists of his monologues to the stranger over a five-day period at the end of which he confesses why his profession is being a judge-penitent.
The crises he endures being a human, his rise as a parison defense lawyer, and his eventual “Fall” constitutes the monologues. This novel is a reflection that humans are deeply flawed because of being able to withhold and/or extend judgment to oneself or others when faced with a crisis, sometimes with infirmity and sometimes with magnanimousness. Events in his monologues are connected with certitude as Camus portrays Jean as providing hints of future events that will develop his character. Also, he hearkens back to the initial days of his Journey of Jean into crises to amount it all to a confession in the end.
The contrary symbolism, stunning imagery, and accurate references to various historical events such as the Holocaust, Colonialism, Slavery, Franco Camps, Saint Peter’s Betrayal, Massacre of the Innocents, Jesus Christ Crucifixion, Lohengrin (the Knight of Swan), etc. along with his placement of medieval figures such as Descartes, Du Guesclin, Savonarola, Elijah, Dante’s Hell, Vermeer, etc. and paintings such as Ghent Altarpiece, The Just Judges, etc. provide a rich context from which he draws powerful contrasts and similarities in his examples. For example, Camus portrays the descent of humans through the symbolism of the concentric channels of Amsterdam and personifying it as living in Dante’s Hell. Jean says the following:
Have you noticed that Amsterdam’s concentric canals resemble the circle of Hell? The middle-class hell, of course, people with bad dreams When one comes from the outside, as one gradually goes through those circles, life — hence its crimes, becomes darker, darker. We are in the last circle.
In later chapters, he would make a confession to the stranger as to why the Jewish quarters where he resides are in Dante’s Hell. There are two reasons. Let’s call them the former reason and the latter reason. The former reason that is introduced at the start of the novel is because of being the scene of the greatest crimes of history as he labels it as follows:
I live in the Jewish quarter or what was called so until our Hitlerian brethren made room. I am living on the site of one of the greatest crimes in history.
Jean was a well-known lawyer who came from Paris to Amsterdam where Mexico City, a Bar became a place of judgment and penitence. He reminds us of the quays of Paris and symbolizes Paris as trompe l’oeil. Trompe l’oeil is a highly optical illusion of three-dimensional space on two-dimensional space. Hence, Camus provides highly accurate symbolic definitions of his ideas and place which makes also provides the readers with beholding imagery of his concocted web of ideas. Other examples of his symbolism would be the silence of the bartender as that of “primeval forests, heavy with threats” and his “obstinacy in snubbing civilized languages” pours a rich descriptive experience that enlightens us deeper. An example of trompe l’oeil art is given below:
Jean portrays the colonialism of Indonesia by the Dutch that started in the 1600s when he describes the “heart of things” and the city of Amsterdam to the stranger that he meets in the bar with whom he has several drinks of Gin. Camus wants Jean to “fully” make us understand the city. Camus portrays Holland to be a “dream of smoke and gold” that is peopled with Lohengrins where the “funereal swans” drift throughout the land via canals.
Camus entices the imagination of the reader by connecting colonialism with the German Legend of Lohengrin, who was the Knight of the Swans. Since there are many variants of the legend of Lohengrin, the basic idea is that in order to save the noble lady in distress, a knight arrives in a boat that is drawn by swans. He marries her but forbids her to ask him about his origins. But when she forgets this promise, he leaves her and never returns. Notice, the stunning juxtaposition between Dutch colonialism and the legend of Lohengrin. Jeans says the following to capture the change that the syndics and merchants have had on the city of Amsterdam through colonialism:
“They have gone a thousand miles away, towards Java. They pray to the grimacing Gods of Indonesia with which they have decorated their shop windows, and which are at this moment floating up like sumptuous monkeys…”
Jean describes his life as a Parisian lawyer in Paris before the “Fall” and states that he was “riding the crest of the wave” because he understood that “virtue is its own reward”. He describes why “living in the wrong” can become unbearable for people which can lead to various atrocities. He tells the stranger during the days of his practice as a lawyer, he did not charge the poor, helped blind people cross the streets, gave alms to the poor, forfeited his taxi, or gave up his seat on a bus to a stranger. He introspects why he choose his career as a lawyer and states that “I accepted the fact because I saw it, but rather as I accepted locusts.”
Camus portrays Jean during his time of grandeur to be a “Man of Mesas.” Mesa is a flat-topped mountain or hill (as shown in the figure below) that symbolizes that Jean thought that he reached the summit, and he partakes in the virtues as his aperitifs. This is further elaborated by Jean saying as follows:
“I have never felt comfortable, except in lofty places. Even in the details of my life, I needed to feel above.”
Camus also provides sheer contrast which further reinforces Jean’s belief. He is keen on choosing deep valleys instead of passes or plateaus when crossing mountains. And those who went for passes or plateaus by people represented to him their ‘traumatized or perverted characters’. He speculated that striving for “elevating minus eight hundred” was “criminal” and that is why he hated speleologists. Ironically enough, as he “Falls”, he ends up on the other side of the aisle he never dreamed of crossing.
Then, one tragic night, as he is walking on the left side of the Quay of Pont de Arts, he hears laughter behind him. He looks back, near the stream, and struggles to figure out where the laugh is coming from. He went home and again hears the laugh. This has a terrible influence on him as he stops walking on the Quays in Paris, and his heart stops crossing the Seine via Bus. He is reminded of the laugh sometimes and ends up feeling depressed and languished. Camus portrays the human condition that relates to the beginning of the “Fall.” Jeans tell the stranger that “he was waiting, he believed.”
Exactly what is this laughter that starts haunting him? Before letting us know of his discovery, he provides us with two events that turn his beliefs upside down. But before that, he acknowledges to the stranger which he calls “mon cher compatriote” which means “my dear compatriot” that the vanity that surrounded him during his time as Parisian Lawyer by uttering the following:
“I, I, I is the refrain of my whole life, which could be heard in everything I said.”
First is his encounter with a “wheezy motorcycle ridden by little man” who has stopped it in front of his car just before the red signal. As soon as the green signal came, the motor did not start, and he politely requested the man to take his motor toward the side of the road to unblock the traffic. The man told him that he “could go and climb up the tree.” Jean starts to become disconcerted and as the horns began to sound like sirens, he again tries to make the man take his motor to the side. This time, the man tells him he would give Jean a “thorough dusting.” This makes Jean filled with rage and he comes out of his car just as he starts to walk toward him to provide a thrashing, he is stopped by a person who didn’t want him to strike the person.
Just as he begins to turn toward his car, he hears the loud sound of the motorcycle riding away. Now, he is left with the loud sirens of cars since he has stopped his car. He went back to his car and drove off. He was greeted by the little man who muttered “poor dope.” He is “taken by surprise, addressed from both sides” meaning by the little man and by the horns of the crowd. He feels as if he has “violated the code of honor” and that he was “beaten without replying”. He admits to the “mon cher compatriote” that he “collapsed in public.”
The second event is the final touch that leads to Jean’s Fall representing the state of the human condition when the entire belief system that one spends his/her successes fitting into one’s mind completely disintegrates. This happens when one is tested with life’s greatest trials to put one’s life on the line to rescue or save someone, especially a stranger. Jean is returning home from his expeditions of charm at half-past midnight in drizzling weather. As he crosses the bridge towards the way to Saint Michael where he lived, he sees a young woman who was leaning over the railing of the bridge. Then, just his distance from the bridge is about fifty yards, he hears the loud sound of the body splashing into the water. Camus once again piercingly symbolizes Jean’s utter state of shock and horror by stating: “He heard cries downstream.” Jean says to himself that it’s “too late, too far.” He is completely shocked that he does not read the newspapers for several days.
The fascinating thing that we should note from this horrible event is the symbolism even till the very end of this incident. Jean crossed the bridge in the direction of Saint Michael Church. We should ask who Saint Michael is. He is an archangel in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and the Baha’i faith. Since there are many theological variants, we will stick to the one in alignment with the Dutch Context of the novel. In Christianity, Saint Michael is a “spiritual warrior of good vs evil, a champion of Justice.” Jean at this point in his life is a Parisian defense lawyer whose specialty is in the “noble cases”: that of widows and orphans to provide them justice.
Camus portrays vividly the shattering of Jean’s noble causes as one might think it would turn upside down Jean’s world as he stood still in horror and shock. He pointed out the “resistible weakness stole him” & the silence that followed was perpetual. Hence, this allows us to understand that these events, especially the second one has a grave impact on Jean. Since he is a lawyer, he is urged to exonerate himself but as we see later in the novel that this makes him follow the path of debauchery, and his “Fall” makes him a judge-penitent.
Camus makes Jean see the “most beautiful negative landscape.” As readers, we can consider Jean’s stairway to Dante’s Hell. Gradually, he begins to see “universal obliteration, everlasting nothingness” because of his fear of dodging judgment. As I described the former reason why Jean found himself in Dante’s Hell, it’s not time to unravel the latter reasons. Jeans says the following to the stranger:
Dante accepts neutral angels in the quarrel between God and Satan. And he puts them in limbo, a sort of vestibule of this Hell. We are in the vestibule.
Hence, this helps us better understand the symbolism that Camus wants us to understand by understanding both the location of Amsterdam’s concentric canals and Jean’s effort of dodging judgment. He ponders judgment, punishment, and misfortune and establishes a connection that “punishment without Judgment is misfortune.” Contrary to this, Jean believes that it’s a matter of “dodging Judgment” and he is in a state of hurry, he can’t be patient for the Last Judgment, so he decided to become “Judge-Penitent.” Prior to his new profession, he noted that he became more vulnerable to public accusation and distrustful. He recognized two things:
- Why did he start hearing the laughter which was coming from nowhere but his heart?
- Great symmetry between virtues and vice.
Camus addressed the first point by highlighting that Jean’s now had something for which he could be judged after what he had gone through. Jeans utter as follows:
“The moment I realized that there was something to judge in me, I realized that there was in them an irresistible vocation for judgment. They were there as before, but they were laughing. Everyone has a hidden smile.”
Note that stunning contrast when Jean believes prior to the two events that shocked him to his soul that “He was concerned in no Judgment.” Hence, Camus presents his readers with a staggering development in Jean’s story. Jean now becomes more attentive since he realizes he has enemies.
As for the second point, Jeans proceed on this path by realizing that for him to avoid any suspicion and any doubt, “he has to cease being at all.” Hence, this is the genesis of Anti-Hero Jean who publishes a manifesto because he wanted to show “the oppression that the oppressed inflict on decent people.” When Jeans meets a beggar in the bar, previously he would exult and provide them alms, but now he yells “You are embarrassing people.” He also writes “Ode to the Police”, and “Apotheosis of the Guillotine”. For him, compliments become unbearable because according to him “the falsehood” increases. So, he ends up giving a disconcerting lecture to young lawyers because the word “Justice” enraged him as he wanted to “break off his handsome wag-figure.” Jeans realizes as follows:
“The surface of all virtues had a less imposing reverse side. I stop there for a great symmetry would upset my argument.”
Eventually, Jean gets discouraged because he is stagnant in his pursuit. Camus symbolizes the state of Jean with the travel that Jean and the stranger are making on the boat on the Zuider Zee as both can’t see the ends of the bay with the following:
“We are making progress and yet nothing is changing. It’s not navigation but dreaming.”
This portrays that Jean assures himself that he is making progress but in reality, nothing is changing. In his heart of hearts, he wanted to “leave the society of men, after all, insolent airs” as he got disheartened by his anti-hero crusade. He sought refuge in debauchery which according to him “muffled the laughter”. For him, “debauchery is but long sleep”. We are provided with a foretelling by Camus that Jean will “interrupt himself on his way to the little ease.” But everything will be turned upside down for Jean when this prediction comes to pass.
During the period of his debauchery, one day he found himself on an ocean liner where he “black speck on the steel-gray ocean” which reminded him of the drowning woman. He then acknowledges that he had to “submit and admit his guilt.” Camus is symbolized by the seagulls represents that “opportunities can be found even in unlikely places.” Jean further validates this by saying by following:
“If the gulls are crying in our direction, what they are calling us”?
He also notes that these are the same gulls that he saw on the day the girl drowned herself in the river and she has traveled all the way around the world to see him again. He admits that she will continue to follow him on the seas and the land, so then he acknowledges that “he had to live with little ease.”
Little-Ease is a dungeon cell in the Middle Ages. One can neither sit nor stand. Camus portrays living conditions as: “Sleep was a collapse and waking a squatting.” Hence, Camus portrays Jean’s life after his anti-hero crusade to be in a state of little ease. Camus also symbolized Jean’s human condition by spitting cell which is a “walled box in which the prisoner stand without moving. The door that locks him stops at chin level, so every passing jailer spits on the face.” Spitting cells also symbolize the judgment of men that Jean feel’s is worse than the last judgment. Jean realizes that the pernicious of all torments is when “we are judged without the law” by our conscience. Hence, that is exactly the reason why he is haunted by that “laughter, that black speck, the seagulls, etc.” and that is why he acknowledges that he is inside with little ease no matter where he goes. It is at this moment that Jeans declares himself to be Judge-Penitent.
Camus, having described what led Jean to be a Judge-Penitent begins highlighting what this noble profession is all about. Before Jean finally begins to unthread the knot and become close to his confession, he makes the stranger understand the difference between truth and falsehood. Truth blinds and “falsehood is a twilight” that descends upon man when every object becomes lucid to the bare eye.
Camus used remarkable symbolism to present Jean as a “Vermeer, without furniture or copper pots.” Johannes Vermeer 15th a century Dutch painter who “specialized in domestic interior scenes of middle-class life.” Hence, Camus shows us the contrast between Jean and Vermeer which is that before Jean’s revival, he was unspecialized, and lost. A person devoid of his true specialization to instrument the work of art that he so wanted. Camus portrayed him to be a half-read book dusting similar to had cut piece of foie gras.
At the start of Jean’s monologues when he was the “Man of Mesas”
Jean now admits that how likes confessions, but we warn the reader by saying:
“When they claim to get painful admissions, you have to watch out, for they are about to dress the corpse.”
In order to validate this further, he tells us about his pontifical adventure where he became pope of the wretched as he was selected because of his failings. He indirectly wanted to go to London via North Africa during World War II. Eventually, he landed in Algeria with his friend who was caught by Germans, while he was sent to the concentration camp at Tripoli. There he met young Frenchman internet at the concentration camp, being deported from Spain on orders of a catholic general. Here Camus portrays the young Frenchman to be of Du Guesclin type.
Bertrand du Guesclin is a 12th-century French Military commander who was well-known for his Fabian Strategy which called for a war of attrition and indirection rather than frontal and/or pitched battles. Here, Camus gives us the indication that young Frenchmen would entice the people there to follow a certain strategy which is symbolically his call for a new pope who “lived among the wretched, rather than praying on the throne”. We find out that Jean is selected to be the new pope who acts as a security for the prisoners, who deal with the water allotment issue among prisoners. Jeans tell us that his decisions of who to allot water accordingly rested on the advantage which he did not shower equally. Hence, he admits that he “drank the water of the dying comrade.” As alluded to earlier, this pontifical incident is Camus’s way of dressing a corpse for Jean’s admission. He dresses the corpse using his two points which are as follows:
- One must forgive the pope.
- It’s the only way to set oneself above him…
Jean draws closer to his confession to the stranger. But first, he tells the stranger that he has the missing panel called “The Just Judges” that was stolen in 1934 in the St. Bavon Cathedral of Ghent from the Ghent Altarpiece also called “Adoration of the Mystic Lamb.” It ended up with from because it was handed to his custody by the “ape” of Mexico City. The Just Judges shows judges on a horseback coming to adore a sacred animal, namely the Lamb. Later, a copy of the original was now placed in the cathedral. Camus draws stunning symbolism as Jean proclaims his five reasons for keeping the panel in his custody as follows:
- The proprietor of Mexico City deserves it equally as Archbishop of Ghent
- Since no one distinguishes the original from the copy, no one is wronged, as Jean labeled it as “no misconduct on his part”.
- Jean dominates.
- Jean’s chance of imprisonment.
- There is “no more Lamb or no more Innocence.”
- The harmonic separation between justice (in Jean’s cupboard) and innocence (on the cross)
Jean believes with “False Judges are held up to world’s admiration and only he knows the true ones.” and that the rascal who stole the panel provided “an instrument of unknown justice” thereby proclaiming no innocence or lamb for the false judges to meet. But Jean has clear conscience as he was aware of where the true judges are so he can practice the profession of Judge-Penitent. He further says that one breathes such a profession. This allows him to silence the laughter that has followed him through lands and seas. He describes the judgment and penitence as follows:
“I am for any theory that refuses to grant man innocence (penitence) and for my practice that treats him as guilty(judgment).”
Jean portrays this profession by providing us with an example of an “atheist novelist who used to pray every night.” He then mutters “what a dusting off” which also reminds us of the wheezy little man on a motorcycle that threatened to dust off Jean during the road incident. I believe that Camus is providing us with the contrast between Jean, the Judge Penitent, and Jean, the defense lawyer. Between someone who was not confident in providing a dusting-off to people and someone whose profession was dusting-off people.
Jean confides in the stranger when he indulges in public confessions, he navigates skillfully according to the connection that he develops with the other person. In the stranger case, since they both are Parison lawyers, this turn of events that leads to the Jean confession takes this form, it is not necessary it would be the case with every stranger. Hence. this also reinforces the concept of truth and falsehood that Jean provides before his confession. Jean also reveals that first, he starts by accusing himself, the more he accuses, the more right gets to judge the “cher”. He admits to being the “lowest of the low” but then he passes that “he” to “we” and then he makes us realize that we are in this soup together.
One thing to note about Structure. Camus divides the monologues of Jean into six portions, where Jean gradually unravels his rise and descent to mon cher compatriote. Indeed, Camus invokes Dante’s Inferno twice in the entire novel. I believe it’s more than twice. Given that Jean’s monologues address a particular portion of his rise, and fall, we are forced to think that the entire novel presents itself in harmonic juxtaposition with Dante’s Six Circles of Hell. The figure below shows the opening phrase of Jean’s six monologues and the first six Circles of Dante’s Hell. What’s fascinating to note is that Camus deliberately presents that the crises of the human condition rhyme with the Divine Comedy.
Jean’s Confession: “I was wrong to tell you to avoid judgment. The essential is being able to permit oneself everything, even if, from time to time, one has to profess vociferously one’s own infamy. I permit myself everything again and without laughter this time.”
Some of my favorite quotes are as follows:
🌻 I say, “my friends”, as a convention. I have no more friends. I have nothing but accomplices.
🌻The day I was alerted I became lucid; I received all the wounds at the same time and lost strength all at once. The whole universe then began to laugh at me.
🌻Truth, like light, blinds. Falsehood, on the contrary, is a beautiful twilight that enhances every object.
🌻At the end of freedom is a court sentence, which is why freedom is heavy to bear.
