The Fall

Summary

The Fall is a short novel in six chapters made up entirely of the monologue of Jean-Baptiste Clamence, a Frenchman living in Amsterdam, who over five days talks to a stranger he meets at a sailors' bar called Mexico City. The listener never speaks in the text; his replies are implied by Clamence's answers. Clamence calls himself a judge-penitent. In the bar, presided over by a silent barman whom Clamence calls a gorilla, he offers to translate for the newcomer and begins to tell his life. Some years earlier he was a successful Paris defense lawyer, specializing in noble causes, widows and orphans, courteous to the blind, generous with alms, admired by colleagues, and pleased above all with himself. He lived, he says, on the heights. Walking through the city in the following days, he compares Amsterdam's concentric canals to the circles of hell and recalls the deportation of the city's Jews during the war. The turning point came one evening on the Pont des Arts in Paris, when, feeling content with his life, he heard a laugh behind him and found no one there. The laugh made him begin to examine himself. He recalls a humiliating quarrel with a motorcyclist at a traffic light in which he failed to strike back, and his pleasure in seducing women he did not love. Finally, on a boat trip on the Zuiderzee, he confesses the memory he had buried: two or three years before the laugh, crossing the Pont Royal after midnight, he passed a young woman in black leaning over the parapet, heard her fall into the Seine and cry out several times, and walked on without turning back or telling anyone. After the laugh he tried to escape judgment by mocking his own virtue, by debauchery and drink, and finally by leaving France. He describes a medieval prison cell called the little-ease, where a man could neither stand nor lie down, and recalls a prison camp in North Africa during the war where fellow prisoners chose him as their pope and he drank a dying comrade's water. In the last chapter, ill with fever in his room, he shows the stranger a stolen panel of Van Eyck's Ghent Altarpiece, The Just Judges, hidden in his cupboard, and explains his method: he accuses himself at length, so that his listeners recognize themselves in the portrait and he can judge them in turn. He learns that the stranger is himself a Paris lawyer, and closes by imagining that the woman calls him again from the water, saying that it is now too late, fortunately. Gallimard published La Chute in 1956, and Justin O'Brien's English translation appeared the same year. The library holds no text; the novel is under copyright.

Plot or Argument

• Chapter 1: Mexico City

  In an Amsterdam bar Clamence introduces himself to a fellow Frenchman, describes the silent barman, and calls himself a judge-penitent without explaining the term.

• Chapter 2: The lawyer on the heights

  He describes his former life in Paris as a lawyer for noble causes, the pleasure he took in virtue and in being above others, and the laugh he heard on the Pont des Arts.

• Chapter 3: Self-examination

  He recounts the incident with the motorcyclist, his vanity in love and friendship, and his discovery that his good deeds served his self-regard.

• Chapter 4: The Zuiderzee and the woman on the bridge

  On the flat grey sea near Marken he confesses that years earlier he had heard a woman fall from the Pont Royal and done nothing.

• Chapter 5: Flight from judgment

  He describes his attempts to escape the laugh through mockery, debauchery and exile, the little-ease cell, and his time as pope of a prison camp.

• Chapter 6: The judge-penitent

  Feverish in his room, he reveals the stolen Just Judges panel, explains his practice of confessing in order to judge others, learns that the stranger is a lawyer, and ends with the woman's imagined cry.

Characters

• Jean-Baptiste Clamence, narrator and sole speaker

  Former Paris defense lawyer, now living in Amsterdam, who calls himself a judge-penitent and confesses to strangers in a bar.

• The listener, silent interlocutor

  Frenchman visiting Amsterdam who hears Clamence over five days and turns out to be a Paris lawyer.

• The barman, proprietor of Mexico City

  Taciturn Dutch barman whom Clamence calls a gorilla and who speaks no French.

• The young woman on the Pont Royal, unseen figure

  Slender woman in black whose fall into the Seine Clamence hears and ignores.

• The motorcyclist, stranger

  Man in a traffic quarrel who humiliates Clamence in public.

• Du Paneloux, fellow prisoner

  Prisoner in the North African camp who proposes that Clamence be chosen pope.

Lessons

• The good deed that serves the self

  Clamence's Paris life was full of genuine acts of help, yet he discovers that he performed them chiefly to stand above others and enjoy his own image. The novel probes the difference between doing good and wanting to be seen as good.

  • What kinds of cases and kindnesses made Clamence proud in Paris?
  • What does he mean by living on the heights?
  • Can a good act be spoiled by the motive behind it?

• The cry not answered

  The woman on the Pont Royal is the buried center of the book. Clamence hears her fall and cries, does not turn, and tells no one; the memory resurfaces only after the laugh on the Pont des Arts.

  • Why does Clamence delay telling this story until the fourth chapter?
  • What reasons does he give for doing nothing that night?
  • Is there a duty to answer a cry for help when one is unlikely to succeed?

• Confession as a weapon

  Clamence's penitence is a technique: by accusing himself in general terms, he draws his listener into the same portrait and so becomes his judge. Camus shows how confession can become a new form of pride.

  • Why does Clamence call himself both judge and penitent?
  • What does the stolen panel of The Just Judges symbolize?
  • How can a reader tell true repentance from Clamence's kind?

• Judgment and grace

  Clamence says that people cannot wait for the Last Judgment because they judge one another every day, and he speaks of Christ often but rejects the possibility of forgiveness. Camus, an unbeliever, leaves the reader to weigh what Clamence lacks.

  • How does Clamence speak about Christ and the Church?
  • Why does the name Jean-Baptiste suit a man who preaches in a wilderness of canals?
  • Does the novel suggest any way out of Clamence's circle of judgment?

Context

The Fall was written after Camus's bitter public break with Jean-Paul Sartre and the circle of Les Temps modernes in 1952 over his essay The Rebel, and during the years of the Algerian War, when Camus was attacked from several sides. Many readers have seen in Clamence a satire of Parisian intellectuals who pass judgment on others while professing guilt, and many have also seen a self-examination by Camus; scholars continue to weigh both readings. Camus repeatedly rejected the label existentialist, and the novel's preoccupation with guilt and judgment is distinct from Sartre's philosophy.

Composition

Camus began the story as one of the tales for his collection Exile and the Kingdom, but it grew beyond the length of the others and was published separately by Gallimard in May 1956. Exile and the Kingdom followed in 1957. The setting draws on Camus's visit to Amsterdam in 1954. The panel of The Just Judges from the Ghent Altarpiece, which Clamence claims to keep, was really stolen in 1934 and has never been recovered.

Reception

The novel was widely admired as a technical achievement, a book-length dramatic monologue. Sartre, in his obituary tribute of 1960, called it perhaps the most beautiful and least understood of Camus's books. Christian critics have discussed its theological vocabulary of fall, judgment and grace, and some have wondered whether Camus was moving toward faith in his last years, a question on which biographers disagree. Justin O'Brien's translation appeared in 1956 and remains standard in the United States; Robin Buss published a new version in 2006.

Comparisons

• notes-from-underground

  Clamence descends from the Underground Man: both speak to an implied audience, anticipate its objections, and expose their own vanity with a mixture of humility and attack.

• camus-the-stranger

  Meursault is condemned for refusing to perform remorse; Clamence turns endless remorse into a performance, so the two novels approach judgment from opposite sides.

• camus-the-plague

  Rieux answers the cries of the sick night after night; Clamence's failure to answer one cry makes him a counterimage of the doctor.

• the-divine-comedy

  Clamence compares Amsterdam's concentric canals to Dante's circles of hell and places himself, as a betrayer of others, near its center.

• the-scarlet-letter

  Dimmesdale hides his guilt behind a reputation for holiness and confesses only at the end; Clamence confesses constantly but in a way designed to keep his power over others.

• confessions

  Augustine confesses to God in order to praise him and to be healed; Clamence confesses to a stranger in order to judge him, making the two books a contrast in the purposes of confession.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

• How the listener's words are implied through Clamence's replies.
• The laugh on the Pont des Arts in Chapter 2.
• The confession about the woman on the Pont Royal in Chapter 4.
• The comparison of Amsterdam's canals to the circles of hell.
• The stolen panel of The Just Judges and the final turn on the listener in Chapter 6.

Key terms and names

Judge-penitent

Clamence's title for himself: one who confesses his own faults in order to gain the right to judge others.

Mexico City

The sailors' bar in Amsterdam where Clamence meets his listener.

The little-ease

A medieval prison cell too small to stand or lie down in, which Clamence uses as an image of permanent guilt.

The Just Judges

A panel of Jan and Hubert van Eyck's Ghent Altarpiece, really stolen in 1934, which Clamence claims to keep in his cupboard.

Dramatic monologue

A form in which a single speaker addresses a silent listener, revealing more of himself than he intends.

Pont Royal

The Paris bridge from which the young woman falls into the Seine.

Content note

Recommended for older high school students with guidance: the narrator describes a suicide he did nothing to prevent, his debauchery and drinking, and wartime deportations.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension What kind of lawyer was Clamence in Paris, and how did he view himself?
2. Comprehension What happened on the Pont Royal, and when does Clamence tell the listener about it?
3. Comprehension What does Clamence keep hidden in his cupboard, and where did it come from?
4. Interpretation Why does the laugh on the Pont des Arts unsettle Clamence so deeply?
5. Interpretation Why does Camus never let the listener speak?
6. Interpretation What does the novel's title refer to: Clamence's fall from the heights, the woman's fall, the fall of man, or all three?
7. Big Question Is confession without the hope of forgiveness still confession?

Faith Connections

• Matthew 7:1-5 (Scripture)

  Christ's warning against judging others while ignoring the beam in one's own eye is turned inside out by Clamence, who shows his beam in order to point at his listener's.

• Luke 18:9-14 (Scripture)

  The Pharisee and the tax collector contrast self-exalting righteousness with humble confession; Clamence's Paris life resembles the Pharisee's, and his penitence imitates the publican's without its plea for mercy.

• Matthew 3:1-3 (Scripture)

  John the Baptist preached repentance as a voice crying in the wilderness; Clamence, whose first names are Jean-Baptiste, preaches guilt in the fogs of Amsterdam but announces no one to come.

• Augustine, Confessions X (Church Fathers)

  Augustine examines the love of praise as a subtle temptation even in good works, the same vanity Clamence discovers in himself, but he brings it to God for healing.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: If every person is guilty and secretly knows it, and if there is no forgiveness to be had, then the only remaining power is to confess first and so become the judge of others; Clamence's career as judge-penitent enacts this reasoning, and the novel leaves its premises open to challenge.

Rhetorical device: dramatic monologue (with implied dialogue). Throughout the six chapters Clamence answers questions the reader never hears, so that the listener's reactions, and finally his profession in Chapter 6, are known only through Clamence's replies.

Debate: Resolved: that Clamence's confession is a form of repentance rather than a form of pride.

Writing Prompts

Essay: Argue whether Clamence is changed by his confession of the night on the Pont Royal, using the end of Chapter 4 and the final page.

Comparison with Notes from Underground: Compare the Underground Man and Clamence as confessional speakers: whom does each address, what does each want from his audience, and how does each treat the woman he failed?

Medical Lens

Medical themes are secondary. The central episode is an unprevented suicide, heard rather than seen. After the laugh on the Pont des Arts Clamence describes palpitations of conscience, sleeplessness, heavy drinking and debauchery as attempts to dull his self-knowledge, and in the last chapter he is confined to bed with fever. Readers have read his condition psychologically as compulsive guilt or narcissism; such readings are interpretive, and Camus frames it in moral and religious terms.

• Chapter 4

  Clamence hears a young woman fall from the Pont Royal into the Seine at night and walks on.

  Suicide
• Chapter 5

  He describes trying to quiet the memory with alcohol and debauchery, and the sense of relief they gave.

  Alcohol Neurosis Anxiety
• Chapter 6

  Clamence receives the stranger in his room while ill with fever.

  Fever Infection

Creative Prompts

• Essay

  Explain how Clamence's method as a judge-penitent works, and argue whether his confession contains any genuine repentance.

• Fiction

  Write the five days of conversation from the silent listener's point of view, including what he might have said in reply.

• Classroom

  Map the walks Clamence takes with his listener through Amsterdam and onto the Zuiderzee, and note what he confesses in each setting.

Further Reading

• Exile and the Kingdom, Albert Camus

  The 1957 story collection for which The Fall was first intended.

• The Rebel, Albert Camus

  The 1951 essay whose reception led to the break with Sartre in the background of the novel.

• Camus and Sartre: The Story of a Friendship and the Quarrel That Ended It, Ronald Aronson

  History of the two writers' relationship and the dispute of 1952.

• Albert Camus: A Life, Olivier Todd

  Biography covering the Amsterdam visit and the writing of the novel.