Fall Camus's Story, the Fall

¶ … Fall Camus's story, "The Fall" tells the story of a self-proclaimed penitent judge, who gets his jollies from confessing of his own sins in order to implicate others whom he may then judge. The protagonist of this story, which was alternately titled "A Hero for our Times," has led a life of self-indulgence in many forms, at all times primarily concerned with the way in which others viewed him.

Even in his role as a penitent, he seems to be confessing largely to keep the fellow to whom he is spilling his history from secretly judging him, and setting himself up in a position where he himself can be the judge. The story certainly does deal with penitence and redemption, guilt and grace. However, it does not approach these issues from a traditional moral perspective, but rather as issues which are dictate either by the social milieu or the personal sentiment of the individual.

There is no question of good and evil, but of how one judges one's self and is judged by others. Actual guilt or innocence, it is subtly suggested, has to do neither with morality or with judgment, but in the degree to which one manages to be natural and authentic. The story is about a "fall" from unexamined selfishness hypocrisy into recognized selfish hypocrisy, and at the same time deals with the way both styles of hypocrisy are praised in "our times" rather than praising authentic life.

The narrator of this piece has never been authentic. Though there is some degree to which he has "fallen," this is inaccurate inasmuch as it implies that he was once in a better state than currently. On the contrary, the only thing which made his situation once better than it has become was his own lack of awareness that the situation wsa bad. His former inauthenticity is made patently clear through-out the story.

For example, in the very beginning he speaks very clearly of the way in which he wished to aid the unfortunate for purely selfish reasons, because of the wonderful thrills he got from their crawling gratitude and esteem. He admits that he himself as most of the same urges as the criminals, in fact. At the height of his inauthenticity, he is bitterly judgemental towards judges, quite ignoring the fact that to judge a judge for judging is circular, at least. His relationships with friends also prove this inauthenticity.

He writes about a friend he "generally avoided [because] He rather bored me." (Camus, 33) Yet when this friend is dying, the narrator "never missed a day. He died satisfied with me, holding both my hands.. [for the sake of] the intentionally short sentences yet heavy with implications, one's restrained suffering and even, yes, a bit of self-accusation!" (Camus, 33) He enjoys death and onerous duties for the self-satisfaction they provide him. His rendevous with women is remarkably similar, based purely on his own experiences and lusts.

All his interactions with women and friends alike are based on play-acting and his own interests with himself: "I am not hard-hearted; far from it -- full of pity on the contrary and with a ready tear to boot. Only, my emotional impulses always turn toward me, my feelings of pity concern me. It is not true, afterall, that I never loved. I conceived at least one great love in my life, of which I was always the object..

I looked merely for objects of pleasure and conquest." (Camus, 58-59) However, despite the fact that the narrator is truly inauthentic, he only becomes aware of his inauthenticity when his illusory self-image is violently brought into contrast with his actual actions. This happens twice in the story he tells, and between the two his fragile self-image is utterly shattered and remade.

The first time mentioned occurs when he is confronted with a man on a motorcycle refuses to move out of his way at a stop light and then embarrasses him publicly. Up until that moment, he had considered himself something of a gallant and (for lack of a better word) a "masculine" man. However, when he orders this "little man" (Camus, 52) out of his way, he is met with disdain.

This interferes with his image of himself as worthy of admiration, but the situation becomes worse when someone comes up behind him and "assured me that I was the lowest of the low and that he would not allow me to strike a man who had a motorcycle between his legs and hence was at a disadvantage..." (Camus, 53) He surprises himself then because, instead of punching the fellow who distracted him and rushing off like a hero to punish the motorcyclist as well, he walks passively back to his car.

"As I passed, the idiot greeted me with a 'poor dope' that I still recall." (Camus 54) This scene dramatically undermines his self-confidence as he begins to realize that he is neither brave nor truly altruistic.

He replays the scene over in his mind trying to imagine punishing those who humiliated him, and in the process he discovers that "When I was threatened, I became not only a judge in turn but even more: an irascible master who wanted, regardless of all laws, to strike down the offender and get him on his knees.

After that, mon cher compatriote, it is very hard to continue seriously believing one has a vocation for justice and is the predestined defender of the widow and orphan." (Camus, 57) He has begun to realize that he is entirely a hypocrite, but that realization will not finally strike home until one more event takes place. This final event comes when he stands by and watches a woman kill herself. He at first becomes sexually aroused by her, and then continues on.

He has barely passed her (fifty yards or so) when he hears the sound of her body hitting the water. He doesn't even turn around, "Almost at once I heard a cry, repeated several times, which was going downstream; then it suddenly ceased. The silence that followed, as the night suddenly stood still, seemed interminable.

I wanted to run and yet didn't stir." (Camus, 71) Despite the fact that he has always called himself an altruist, he doesn't even turn to look if he can help, but rather he justifies to himself that it is "Too late, too far..." (Camus, 71) and goes away without even alerting anyone that she had fallen in. At that point, he entirely realizes that he is neither a noble person or even a good one.

Then, suddenly aware that he deserves to be judged, he is aware that he is being judged. "I felt vulnerable and open to public accusation. In my eyes my fellows ceased to be the respectful public to which I was accustomed. The circle of which I was the center broke and they lined up in a row as on the judge's bench.

In short, the moment I grasped that there was something to judge in me, I realized that there was in them an irresistible vocation for judgment." (Camus, 79) He becomes social anxious, certain that everyone is mocking him. The whole universe then began to laugh at me." (Camus, 81) He feels, essentially for the first time, his need to be authentic so as to escape scorn. It is not so much authenticity he craves here as it is the good esteem of his neighbors, but they are inter-related.

Because he cannot make himself authentic by making both the inner and outer man good, the narrator begins to attempt to become authentic by making both inner and outer man evil. He tries to make his companions think poorly of him, by all manner of inappropriate activity, including espousing religion among atheists and slavery among egalitarians. He also tries to loose himself in debauchery, to forget his mental torments by becoming authentic in his obedience to lust and love. Unfortunately, he finds himself incapable of authentic feeling.

To make matters worse, he retains his urge to judge others, and to pick apart their faults regardless (or perhaps because of) his own. It seems unlikely that at this point he truly cares for authenticity, rather he cares to silence the way the judging voices sting at him by truly and gladly living up to their predictions. He himself quickly returns to being a judge of others, as the ultimate escape.

"People hasten to judge in order not to be judged themselves." (Camus, 81-82) He tries everything to become authentic or at least to silence the condemning voices, but he fails because he is incapable of taking any pleasure from that which actually is authentic. So what is authenticity? The only possibility suggested to us is that of the innkeeper, who has "the silence of the primeval forest.. this one is not aware of his exile; he goes his own sweet way and nothing touches him.

One of the rare sentences I have ever heard from his mouth proclaimed that you could take it or leave it.. Anyone who has considerably meditated on man, by profession or vocation, is led to feel nostalgia for the primates. They at least don't have any ulterior motives." (Camus, 4) Passion as well might make one authentic, or a true and mindless embrace of any aspect of life. Truthfully, the story does little to present us with true authenticity, because the narrator himself never discovers it.

The meaning of this story may seem very difficult to grasp if one makes the assumption that the narrator speaks for the author as a voice of wisdom and reason. Actually, no such assumption needs to be made. Camus is well-known for writing ironic works in which the speaker is not a mouth-piece for virtue. A key to this work may be found in something which Camus wrote shortly before-hand regarding his falling-out with Sartre.

"Existentialists! Whenever they accuse themselves, you can be sure it is invariably in order to assail others. [they are] Penitent judges." (in: Raskin) Because of this quote, and the similarities between certain elements of the story's philosophy and that of the existentialists, some critics consider this story to be "at least in part a.