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Thoughts on The Fall by Camus
Just finished reading The Fall and I wanted to put my interpretation of the book out there.
The title of the book kind of spells out what it's really about. It's ultimately a story about a man's descent or "fall from grace" as people say.
The protagonist, Jean Baptiste Clamence, was initially a perfectly harmonic man. He was content, had a good job which he loved, he had excellent social relations, reputation. In short, he was about as successful as a regular man can ever really hope to be. But suddenly one day, on his way back home, he witnessed a woman commit suicide by jumping off a bridge, and here is where things get interesting: our protagonist does absolutely nothing, he doesn't even report the death to the authorities.
From this point onwards, Jean's life begins to spiral. He slowly begins to realise that he had been living his life on autopilot, that he had never taken life seriously, that he really wasn't as perfect as he'd liked to think he was. He begins to realise that the people around him don't actually even like him all that much either. The harmony he once enjoyed is starting to deteriorate.
The woman's suicide was shocking enough that it finally brought down the entire weight and burden of existence and life itself down on his shoulders. It snaps him out of his harmonic day dream and throughout the book Jean struggles and fails to overcome this weight or burden put on his shoulders.
He's unable to accept that people are not perfect, especially himself whom he loves so much, and this drives him to utter despair. The loss of innocence of man and the death of God and religion causes Jean to float adrift in an empty grey sea devoid of objective values and morals or meaning to cling on to. He can't even cling on to himself like he used to since he now knows that he's not nearly as impressive as he once thought he was. Jean is desperately looking for something to lean on, he's looking for an island in an otherwise empty sea and eventually he drowns in this despair.
So what is Jean's solution? If he can't swim out of the sea and finally reach the doves fluttering in the skies, then he'll drag the rest of humanity down with him into the depths. Everybody is guilty, no more innocence. But according to Jean, even though he's guilty just like everyone else, he feels uniquely qualified to sit above everyone else since he feels "aware" of the truth and has degraded himself and has cast insult upon insult on to himself and therefore is worthy to cast judgement on the rest of the world. First he became penitent, then he became judge. He keeps the painting "The Just Judges" with him as a sort of "fuck you" to the rest of the world. His narcissism will not allow anyone else to be happy or content until he is. But he can never be happy anymore, despair has already swallowed him whole.
The story ultimately condemns narcissism and despair. Jean refuses to identify himself with rest of humanity as proven by his refusal to do anything when the woman jumps off the bridge. Her death follows him everywhere in the canals, he hears laughter as though life itself was laughing at him for his silly narcissism. It's interesting to note that Jean says he hears the laugh two times in the novel: the first time was before his life spiralled down, when he was harmonic and day dreaming, unaware of life in general and simply passing through the motions. The other time is at the end of the book when he undertakes his task of degrading the entire world. In both cases, life laughs at his pathetic narcissism. The only difference is in the first case, Jean was in total harmony, in the other, he was overcome with despair. But he never stopped placing himself above everyone else and this is what leads to his doom when he eventually finds out that he cannot live on his own, that he requires the strength of his contemporaries who he looks down on. He realises he alone is not enough to propel him forward happily, but he only really recognises himself. Hence the despair and hatred.
In the end of the book, Jean says he wishes he could relive the moment when the woman jumped off the bridge. He wants a second chance to atleast try and save the woman. Even if he failed, he would atleast then finally realise his place along with the rest of mankind instead of separate from it. But as he says, it's too late now, it's always too late. Despair has won and will now win over mankind as a whole because of narcissism.
Sorry for the long post. I'm sure there's a lot more stuff in the novel that I wanted to touch on but for now I just wanted to put my general thoughts out.
What do you all think? What was your interpretation of the novel?
Just finished reading The Fall and I wanted to put my interpretation of the book out there.
The title of the book kind of spells out what it's really about. It's ultimately a story about a man's descent or "fall from grace" as people say.
The protagonist, Jean Baptiste Clamence, was initially a perfectly harmonic man. He was content, had a good job which he loved, he had excellent social relations, reputation. In short, he was about as successful as a regular man can ever really hope to be. But suddenly one day, on his way back home, he witnessed a woman commit suicide by jumping off a bridge, and here is where things get interesting: our protagonist does absolutely nothing, he doesn't even report the death to the authorities.
From this point onwards, Jean's life begins to spiral. He slowly begins to realise that he had been living his life on autopilot, that he had never taken life seriously, that he really wasn't as perfect as he'd liked to think he was. He begins to realise that the people around him don't actually even like him all that much either. The harmony he once enjoyed is starting to deteriorate.
The woman's suicide was shocking enough that it finally brought down the entire weight and burden of existence and life itself down on his shoulders. It snaps him out of his harmonic day dream and throughout the book Jean struggles and fails to overcome this weight or burden put on his shoulders.
He's unable to accept that people are not perfect, especially himself whom he loves so much, and this drives him to utter despair. The loss of innocence of man and the death of God and religion causes Jean to float adrift in an empty grey sea devoid of objective values and morals or meaning to cling on to. He can't even cling on to himself like he used to since he now knows that he's not nearly as impressive as he once thought he was. Jean is desperately looking for something to lean on, he's looking for an island in an otherwise empty sea and eventually he drowns in this despair.
So what is Jean's solution? If he can't swim out of the sea and finally reach the doves fluttering in the skies, then he'll drag the rest of humanity down with him into the depths. Everybody is guilty, no more innocence. But according to Jean, even though he's guilty just like everyone else, he feels uniquely qualified to sit above everyone else since he feels "aware" of the truth and has degraded himself and has cast insult upon insult on to himself and therefore is worthy to cast judgement on the rest of the world. First he became penitent, then he became judge. He keeps the painting "The Just Judges" with him as a sort of "fuck you" to the rest of the world. His narcissism will not allow anyone else to be happy or content until he is. But he can never be happy anymore, despair has already swallowed him whole.
The story ultimately condemns narcissism and despair. Jean refuses to identify himself with rest of humanity as proven by his refusal to do anything when the woman jumps off the bridge. Her death follows him everywhere in the canals, he hears laughter as though life itself was laughing at him for his silly narcissism. It's interesting to note that Jean says he hears the laugh two times in the novel: the first time was before his life spiralled down, when he was harmonic and day dreaming, unaware of life in general and simply passing through the motions. The other time is at the end of the book when he undertakes his task of degrading the entire world. In both cases, life laughs at his pathetic narcissism. The only difference is in the first case, Jean was in total harmony, in the other, he was overcome with despair. But he never stopped placing himself above everyone else and this is what leads to his doom when he eventually finds out that he cannot live on his own, that he requires the strength of his contemporaries who he looks down on. He realises he alone is not enough to propel him forward happily, but he only really recognises himself. Hence the despair and hatred.
In the end of the book, Jean says he wishes he could relive the moment when the woman jumped off the bridge. He wants a second chance to atleast try and save the woman. Even if he failed, he would atleast then finally realise his place along with the rest of mankind instead of separate from it. But as he says, it's too late now, it's always too late. Despair has won and will now win over mankind as a whole because of narcissism.
Sorry for the long post. I'm sure there's a lot more stuff in the novel that I wanted to touch on but for now I just wanted to put my general thoughts out.
What do you all think? What was your interpretation of the novel?
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