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The Fall
occupied France for North Africa instead.
INTR
INTRODUCTION
ODUCTION
BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF ALBERT CAMUS RELATED LITERARY WORKS
Albert Camus was born on November 7, 1913 in French The Fall (1956) is the third of three novel’s Camus published
Colonial Algeria to an ethnically French but Algerian-born during his lifetime, the other two being The Str
Stranger
anger (1942),
family. His father was killed fighting in World War I about a French man who commits an apparently unmotivated
(1914–1918) less than a year after his birth, and his mother murder in colonial Algeria, and The Plague (1947), about an
was poor and illiterate. Despite an impoverished childhood, epidemic decimating a city in colonial Algeria in the 1940s. Like
Camus won a scholarship to attend a well-regarded secondary The Fall, The Str
Stranger
anger and The Plague are philosophical novels
school in 1924. In 1933, he matriculated at the University of that express Camus’s “absurdism,” a theory according to which
Algiers, where he studied philosophy, earning his bachelor’s existence is objectively meaningless and human beings must
degree in 1936. In 1940, Camus moved to Paris; shortly embrace their freedom and responsibility to create subjective
thereafter, he tried to fight in World War II (1939–1945), but meaning and purpose for themselves. Though Camus
the French Army rejected him due to his history of frequently rejected the label of “existentialist,” his literary
tuberculosis. After Nazi Germany occupied France, Camus works are also frequently associated with existentialist
worked for the French Resistance against the Nazi occupiers. philosophy. Other philosophical novels associated with
Also during World War II, Camus published his first and most existentialism include Jean-Paul Sartre’s Nausea (1938), about
famous novel, The Str
Stranger
anger (1942), about a man who commits a a young man who becomes increasingly, viscerally disgusted by
senseless murder in Algeria. During his lifetime, he published the objects and people around him, and Simone de Beauvoir’s
two more novels, The Plague (1947) and The Fall (1956). He also Inseparable, written in 1954 but not published until 2020, about
wrote half a dozen plays and was a prolific publisher of an intense relationship between two young women. Finally, The
nonfiction. In 1957 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Fall makes repeated reference not only to Judeo-Christian
Literature. Three years later, in 1960, he died in a car accident narratives generally but also specifically to Dante Alighieri’s
at age 46, after which two more of his novels, one incomplete, Divine Comedy (c. 1321), an epic poem about the journey of a
were published posthumously. pilgrim soul through hell, purgatory, and heaven.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT KEY FACTS

Albert Camus’s The Fall makes pointed references both to the • Full Title: The Fall
Holocaust, the genocide that Nazi Germany committed against • When Published: 1956
Jewish people in Europe during World War II (1939–1945),
• Literary Period: Existentialism
and to the Nazi occupation of France. Nazi Germany invaded
France in May 1940 and largely controlled France by the end of • Genre: Philosophical Novel
June 1940; from June 1940 to August 1944, France was • Setting: Amsterdam, Netherlands after World War II
administrated by the so-called Vichy government, a Nazi- • Climax: The narrator admits he has been trying to
controlled French state under the leadership of Philippe Pétain manipulate his listener into a self-condemning confession.
(1856–1951). In 1942, Vichy France collaborated with Nazi • Point of View: First Person
Germany to deport ethnically Jewish people from France to
concentration camps. During the Nazi occupation of France EXTRA CREDIT
and the Vichy government period, anti-Nazi guerilla fighters
known as the French Resistance sabotaged the Nazis, Speedy Translation. Justin O’Brien’s English translation of
published illegal newspapers, and gave aid to Allied forces Albert Camus’s The Fall came out in 1956—the same year that
fighting the Nazis. Ultimately, Allied forces aided by the French the original came out in French as La Chute.
Resistance liberated France from the Vichy government and
from Nazi control from August 1944 through May 1945. Zuider Zee. In The Fall, the narrator and his listener take a boat
During his time in Nazi-occupied Paris, Albert Camus was a trip on the Zuider Zee to Markan Island. The Zuider Zee, a
member of the French Resistance, writing for a banned anti- former bay in the North Sea, strictly speaking no longer
Nazi newspaper Combat. In The Fall, the narrator mentions exists—it was progressively dammed off from the late 1920s
having considered joining the Resistance but having fled Nazi- through the 1950s, separating it into saltwater part in the

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Wadden Sea and a freshwater lake, Lake Ijssel. the condemners rather than the condemned.
On the boat ride back from Markan Island, the narrator
explains that after publicly condemning himself failed to make
PL
PLO
OT SUMMARY him feel better, he tried to forget his failings first through love
At an Amsterdam bar called Mexico City, the narrator offers to affairs and then through mere sexual excess. At last, tired from
order gin for his unnamed listener from the bartender, who sex and drinking, he thought he had overcome his problem—but
speaks only Dutch. As the narrator and his listener chat, the then, on a cruise he took to celebrate his victory, he briefly and
narrator introduces himself as a former lawyer who now horrifyingly mistook trash in the water for a drowning person.
follows the “double” profession of “judge-penitent.” When the This mistake made him realize that his failure to try to save the
listener has to leave the bar, the narrator offers to walk him woman in black would haunt him forever. After the boat comes
home—but, after walking him partway, he leaves the listener at back ashore in Amsterdam, the narrator and the listener walk
a bridge. In parting, the narrator explains that he never crosses to the narrator’s house together. On the way, the narrator tells
bridges at night to avoid people attempting suicide by the listener that Jesus Christ must have been guilty of
drowning. something to be crucified—for example, of surviving the
Slaughter of the Innocents, in which wicked king Herod
Sometime later, the narrator and listener meet again in Mexico murdered many infants trying to kill the baby Jesus. He goes on
City. The narrator explains that he used to be a very famous to claim that while Christ only wanted to love and be loved,
lawyer in Paris who took on a lot of pro bono cases. Though everyone (including but not limited to Christians) only judges
outwardly charitable, the narrator was egotistical and liked rather than loving or forgiving.
feeling superior to others, a feeling he managed to maintain
until one fateful evening. That evening, he was walking along When the listener comes to the narrator’s home the following
the quays of the Seine when, suddenly, he heard laughter day, the narrator is in bed with a fever, possibly contracted in a
whose source he couldn’t determine. Rather than finish his prison camp where he was elected pope. The narrator goes on
story, the narrator arranges to meet with the listener later, to explain that during World War II, after the Nazis took Paris,
saying that he must go give legal advice to an art burglar who he fled to North Africa. In North Africa, the Nazis arrested him
once committed a very famous theft. and put him in a prison camp. There, he met a highly religious
Frenchman he nicknamed “Du Guesclin.” Du Guesclin,
At their next meeting, the narrator tells the listener that though disgusted by papal support for the fascist Spanish dictator
he temporarily forgot about the mysterious laughter, he started Franco, insisted that the prisoners elect a new pope among
avoiding the quays of the Seine and became depressed. He themselves. The narrator claims that he doesn’t like to dwell on
suggests to the visitor that they stroll outside. Outside, he that time of his life because, after Du Guesclin died of thirst, he
comments on a shop sign decorated by the heads of enslaved (the narrator) drank the water ration of another prisoner who
Black people; inferring that the shop once belonged to a slave later died—something the narrator claims he would not have
merchant, he argues that liberal men still tacitly condone done if Du Guesclin had still been living.
domestic slavery and wage slavery—but they would be
scandalized by such a sign. He argues that slavery is “inevitable” Abruptly, the narrator asks the listener to make sure his door is
because everyone wants to dominate at least one other person shut, and then he directs him to open the cupboard and marvel
but that society should pretend slavery doesn’t exist to protect at the stolen painting therein: Van Eyck’s “The Just Judges,” a
the fragile egos of both the enslavers and the enslaved. Then he panel from a cathedral altarpiece in Ghent. He explains that a
explains to the listener how, after the incident of the frequenter of Mexico City originally stole the painting and sold it
mysterious laughter, he began to remember incidents in his life to the bartender, who gave it to the narrator for safekeeping
that revealed to him his own total egotism. Finally, he reveals to after the narrator explained its origins. When the listener asks
the listener the most important such incident: late one night, he why the narrator didn’t return the painting, the narrator gives a
walked past a young woman in black on a bridge, only for her to series of self-justifying responses—and then says he’s finally
attempt suicide by jumping into the water. After she jumped, going to explain what exactly a “judge-penitent” is. He tells the
she repeatedly cried out—but rather than try to help her, he listener that throughout their conversations, he has been
first froze and then just kept walking. acting as a “judge-penitent” through interpersonal
manipulation: his purpose has been to tell stories about himself
The next day, the narrator and his listener go on a trip to that condemn him—but in a way that subtly hold up a “mirror”
Markan Island. On the boat, the narrator tells the listener that to his listener as well, eventually leading the listener to confess
even after he realized how egotistical he was, he tried—out of his own sins and condemn himself. This confession will allow
egotism—to avoid that knowledge. (He claims that all people the narrator to feel superior to the listener despite the
love to think themselves “innocent,” though no one is.) First, he narrator’s knowledge of his own horribleness. Finally, the
tried to publicly condemn himself as a way of joining the side of narrator demands that the listener confess what happened to

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him (the listener) on the quays of the Seine and call out to the does confess. As the novel consists in the narrator’s remarks to
woman in black to jump again. That way, the listener can the listener, the listener functions as something of a stand-in
actually save her this time. for the audience: he hears what readers hear and is
manipulated by the unreliable narrator as readers are
manipulated.
CHARA
CHARACTERS
CTERS The Bartender – The bartender works at Mexico City, a bar in
The Narr
Narrator
ator – The narrator claims to be a former lawyer, well the red-light district of Amsterdam. As the bartender speaks
known in Paris, who took on pro bono defense cases and only Dutch, the narrator—who seems to speak both Dutch and
engaged in other charitable works—ultimately not out of French—ends up ordering drinks for the listener, a French
genuine moral conviction but out of egotism and a desire that tourist, thus beginning the narrator’s and listener’s
others should admire him. One night after hearing mysterious acquaintance. Later, the narrator tells the listener that he is
laughter whose source he could not discover, the narrator holding Van Eyck’s “The Just Judges,” a painting stolen from
began remembering unflattering and alarming incidents from Saint Bavo Cathedral in Ghent in 1934, for the bartender. The
his past that destroyed his elevated self-opinion. In particular, bartender bought it from a burglar who drank at his bar.
he remembered walking past a woman in black on an otherwise Unaware of the painting’s illegal origins, he hung it over the bar,
deserted Parisian bridge, hearing her attempt suicide by only to give it to the narrator in a panic once the narrator
jumping into the river below the bridge, and failing to help her explained where it had come from. The narrator speaks of the
even after she began crying out. After this memory resurfaced, bartender with contempt, but as readers only learn about the
the narrator tried to escape his own crushing self- bartender through the unreliable narrator, it is difficult to know
condemnation through public self-criticism, sentimental love how to interpret the narrator’s judgment on him.
affairs, and sexual debauchery and alcohol. He thought he had The W Woman
oman in Black – The woman in black is a figure that the
finally escaped until, one day, he mistook a piece of trash in the narrator claims he encountered late one night on a bridge in
water for a drowning person and realized the woman in black Paris. Shortly after the narrator walks past her, he hears her
would always haunt him. At that point, he moved to Amsterdam attempt suicide by jumping into the water and then begin
and decided to become a “judge-penitent,” someone who crying out, possibly for help. Rather than help her, the narrator
through self-aware penitence manipulates others into similar first freezes and then walks on. Resurfacing memories of this
agonized confessions of unworthiness—thus allowing him to encounter precipitate the narrator’s moral and existential crisis
feel superior to them. Throughout the novel, the narrator several years later. Yet as readers know about the woman in
engages in conversations with his unknown listener for just this black only through the stories of the unreliable narrator, it is
manipulative purpose. Notably, all information that readers unclear whether the incident truly happened—especially since,
have about the narrator comes from his manipulative at the novel’s end, the narrator exhorts his listener to confess
conversations with the listener, during which he admits to lying; having the same encounter with the woman in black. Given this
for example, he introduces himself to the listener as “Jean- ending, the woman in black may not be a “real” person but a
Baptiste-Clamence,” only to admit a little later that he invented symbol of the narrator and listener’s shared guilt, loss of
the name. Thus, it’s unclear how much of the narrator’s story innocence, and need to confess.
about himself is true. Du Guesclin – Du Guesclin is a young French man who, though
The Listener – The listener, whom the reader learns about only very religious, fights in the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939)
through comments of the unreliable, sometimes deceitful against Spanish dictator Francisco Franco’s conservative-
narrator, is a middle-aged lawyer from Paris whom the narrator Catholic fascist Nationalists. He meets the narrator in a Nazi
identifies as an “open-minded[]” and “cultured bourgeois.” While prison camp in Northern Africa, where the narrator was
on a trip to Amsterdam, he meets the narrator in a red-light arrested and imprisoned after fleeing Nazi-occupied France.
district bar called Mexico City, and they strike up a provisional Du Guesclin is not the man’s real name—the narrator
friendship. Over the course of several days, the narrator slowly nicknames him “Du Guesclin,” presumably after Bertrand du
reveals to the listener how he had an existential crisis, gave up Guesclin (c. 1320–1380), a famous French knight and military
his own law career in Paris, and moved to Amsterdam to leader who fought during the Hundred Years’ War
become a “judge-penitent,” someone who engages in self-aware (1337–1453). Disgusted by his perception that the Catholic
self-condemnation to manipulate others into agonized pope supported Franco, the religious Du Guesclin suggests
confessions and thereby feel superior to them. Ultimately, the that the men in the prison camp should elect an alternate pope
narrator reveals that he has been trying to manipulate the from among their members. When he asks which of the
listener into just such an agonized confession—but as readers prisoners has the most flaws, the narrator raises his hand, so
only have access to the narrator’s side of the conversation, not Du Guesclin proposes him as pope—and the other prisoners
the listener’s, it is ultimately unknown whether the listener agree. Later, Du Guesclin dies of thirst in the prison camp,

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where water is rationed. After his death, the narrator steals the mistakes—but most people are incapable of such free self-
water ration of a dying fellow prisoner, something he claims he forgiveness.
would not have stooped to if Du Guesclin, whom he admired,
were alive. Yet as readers learn about Du Guesclin only FREEDOM VS. DOMINATION
through the novel’s unreliable narrator, it is unclear how much
The Fall argues that human beings as individuals are
of the story is true—or even whether Du Guesclin is real.
inescapably free in that they are ultimately
responsible for their own choices. Yet most people
THEMES are terrified of their own individual freedom because it leaves
them “alone” to face “others’ judgment.” Thus, out of terror,
In LitCharts literature guides, each theme gets its own color- most people seek to escape judgment either through
coded icon. These icons make it easy to track where the themes dominating others or through being dominated and thereby
occur most prominently throughout the work. If you don't have surrendering their freedom to some “master.” The novel
a color printer, you can still use the icons to track themes in forwards this argument through the story of its narrator, who
black and white. discovered his own terrifying freedom when he chose not to
save a drowning woman in black who cried out for help after
GUILT AND JUDGMENT she jumped into a river at night to attempt suicide. The narrator
is so horrified by his own freedom and the judgment it could
In The Fall, the narrator implicitly argues that all
bring that he devotes his life to dominating others by
human beings are “guilty,” in the sense that each manipulatively convincing them that they are even guiltier and
individual is ultimately responsible for their own morally worse than he is. Meanwhile, he argues that people’s
choices, some of which are inevitably bad. This universal guilt longing for group-based “dreadful rules” to follow—a longing
exposes all human beings to others’ judgment, a judgment that subtly illustrated by the novel’s repeated references to Nazi
each individual finds intolerable and attempts to escape. The Germany and its rule-bound “method” of exterminating Jewish
narrator illustrates the fundamental guiltiness of human beings people—fundamentally derives from their fear of their
by describing his own past self. The narrator was once an individual freedom. Thus, The Fall subtly implies that the only
outwardly virtuous, praiseworthy lawyer focused on pro bono
true escape from domination and slavery is to embrace one’s
cases. Nevertheless, during a chance encounter with a young
freedom and, in consequence, one’s total moral responsibility
woman in black on a bridge at night, he chose not to intervene
and the accompanying likelihood that one will be judged.
in her suicide by drowning—even after, once in the water, she
began crying out. In other words, the narrator found himself
accidentally responsible for someone else’s life and indirectly EGOTISM
guilty for her death, a random responsibility and guilt based on In The Fall, egotism is central to human psychology
his total freedom to choose to help or not help her. The and action. The novel conveys the centrality of
woman’s fall into the water triggers the narrator’s “fall” from egotism through its narrator, who argues for
innocence, his sudden knowledge that he is responsible for his egotism’s importance both explicitly and implicitly. Explicitly, he
own free choices and capable of making the wrong choice. His claims that individuals “can’t love without self-love” and that
fall from innocence in turn alludes to the Judeo-Christian Fall “the joy of self-esteem” is what motivates individuals to loving
of Man, the story of humanity’s transition from sinless or virtuous behavior—while threats of self-esteem can
innocence to sinful knowledge of good and evil. motivate them even to murder. The narrator repeatedly makes
The remainder of the narrator’s story has to do with his himself an example of this kind of self-centeredness, claiming
attempts to avoid others’ judgment despite his knowledge of that in all his love affairs with women, his “one great love” was
his own guilt. After attempting various distractions, he himself, a self-love that motivated him to seek adoration and
eventually decides that by publicly proclaiming his own guilt loyalty from women only to become bored with them once they
and judging himself, he can convince others of their guilt and so had flattered his vanity. Implicitly, the narrator also argues for
shift judgment onto them. Toward the novel’s end, the narrator egotism’s importance through his behavior: he eventually
reveals to his listener that all their conversations have been just reveals to his unnamed listener that throughout their
such an attempt to foist guilt and judgment onto the listener, a conversations, he has been attempting to elicit a self-
ploy that the narrator feels he must enact because he is condemning confession from the listener so that he himself can
psychologically incapable of just forgiving himself. Thus, The Fall feel superior despite his acute awareness of his own flaws and
suggests that the only way to escape guilty self-condemnation failures. Thus, the novel suggests that egotism is a trap in which
and fruitless attempts to avoid judgment is to accept the all human beings are stuck: on the one hand, we all want to love
responsibilities of freedom and forgive oneself for one’s and esteem ourselves. On the other hand, however, we are
better positioned than anyone to know our own ugly and

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unlovable qualities. Yet even as the novel uses Judeo-Christian allusions to help
elucidate its narrator’s inner life and moral dilemmas, the
HYPOCRISY AND INAUTHENTICITY narrator also argues that organized religion and its rules are
just another way that people try to abdicate moral
The Fall suggests that people tend toward
responsibility for what are ultimately their free, individual
hypocrisy due to their egotism. On the one hand,
choices. For example, the narrator argues that to shirk
people’s egotism makes them selfish and thus, in
responsibility for making individual choices, people choose a
conventional terms, immoral. On the other hand, people’s
“master” to follow who makes the choices for them—and claims
egotism makes them want to believe that they are moral and
that the only reason they choose a human master rather than
good. Moreover, one’s egoism makes one want others to believe
God and the church is that God is “out of style.” Thus, The Fall
in one’s morality and goodness. The conflict between people’s
characterizes Judeo-Christianity as a deeply meaningful story
selfishness and their desire to appear good leads them to
while suggesting that organized religion is just a means of
hypocritically “playact” morality while continuing to behave in
dodging individual moral responsibility.
self-serving ways. The narrator makes this point to his
unnamed listener when they pass a shop sign in Amsterdam
bearing “the heads of Negro slaves,” a sign revealing that the SYMBOLS
shop-owners used to be slave dealers. The narrator argues that
most contemporary people (in the 1950s when the novel was Symbols appear in teal text throughout the Summary and
published) would profess shock and disgust at such a sign or at Analysis sections of this LitChart.
literal slavery, yet those same people are willing to countenance
de facto slavery “at home or in our factories,” as in the domestic
oppression of women or the economic exploitation of the THE PAINTING
working classes. In other words, the novel argues through its In The Fall, the stolen painting symbolizes the
narrator that many people who consider themselves “good” loss—or the nonexistence—of legitimate objective
hypocritically put up with or benefit from injustice—and that standards by which people can judge each other. The narrator
this hypocrisy makes people “double,” split between their first mentions the painting early in the novel, directing his
interior selfishness and exterior performance of morality. listener’s attention to an empty wall of the bar they’re at and
telling him a painting used to hang there. A while later, the
JUDEO-CHRISTIANITY narrator tells the listener that he is giving legal advice to
another patron of the bar, who pulled off “the most famous
The Fall implies that Judeo-Christian narratives are
theft of a painting”—without revealing to the listener that the
a useful framework for understanding the human
absent painting in the bar and the painting his client stole are
condition. At the same time, the. novel also argues
the same. Later, the narrator hints to the listener that he has
that people use organized religion and its dogmatic rules to
“an object” at home that law enforcement officers are searching
shirk individual responsibility for their own free choices. First,
for, again without revealing the identity of the object.
the novel implies the usefulness of Judeo-Christian narratives
by alluding to these narratives in its title and its text. The “fall” It is only in his final conversation with the listener, at the novel’s
of the title refers to three things. First, it refers to the suicide of end, that the narrator reveals he has in his possession Van
the young woman in black who jumps into the Seine and Eyck’s “The Just Judges” (c. 1430–1432), a real painting stolen
drowns. It also refers to the narrator’s fall from innocence and from the Saint Bavo Cathedral in Ghent, Belgium in 1934 and
self-esteem into tortured self-loathing after he is the sole never recovered. He explains that his client sold it to the
witness to the woman’s suicide and fails to help her. Finally, the bartender of their usual bar and that the bartender gave it to
title indirectly references the Fall of Man, the Judeo-Christian him, the narrator, for safekeeping after learning its criminal
story of humankind’s transition from innocent goodness to history. When the listener asks the narrator why the narrator
sinfulness and experiential knowledge of evil, a story that the didn’t return the painting to law enforcement, the narrator
narrator’s fall from innocence into guilt echoes in a modern and gives a series of specious justifications for his choice. For
realistic setting. The narrator reinforces the Judeo-Christian example, he argues that the painting belongs to the bartender,
allusion in the novel’s title and its central incident (the woman’s not him. The narrator’s sophistical and internally contradictory
suicide and the narrator’s inaction) by drawing parallels rationalizations of his behavior with regard to the stolen
between his own experiences and other elements of Judeo- painting emphasize the novel’s position that people no longer
Christianity, such as the Garden of Eden (the paradise in which share—and perhaps never truly shared—objectively valid and
humanity lived before the Fall), hell and limbo (parts of the universally accepted standards for behavior, meaning that
afterlife according to some Christian denominations), and every person is free (indeed required) to judge his or her own
Christian baptism. behavior according to individual standards.

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THE LITTLE-EASE always has “ulterior motives” foreshadows the revelation,

In The Fall, the little-ease represents the late in the novel, that he himself has an ulterior motive in
psychological torture the narrator suffers upon offering to translate for the listener and thereby striking up
realizing his own lack of goodness and innocence. A “little-ease” an acquaintance with him. Eventually, the narrator will
is a medieval torture device, a jail cell large enough to fit one explain to the listener that throughout their conversations,
person but too small for that person to stand or lie down. The he has been manipulating the listener to convince the
narrator, trying to explain his emotional and existential pain to listener of his own guilt, egotism, hypocrisy, etc.—so that the
his listener, compares the physical torture that the little-ease narrator can escape his own sense of guilt, dominate the
inflicts on prisoners to his own psychological “imprisonment” by listener, and feel superior. Thus, in this early scene, the
the knowledge of his moral failings and his simultaneous narrator is giving the listener (and the novel’s readers) a
overwhelming egotism, where his knowledge prevents him cryptic hint about his secret purpose even as he attempts to
from forgiving himself and his egotism prevents him from ensnare the listener (and the novel’s readers) in his
simply accepting his failings. Through this comparison, the narrative.
little-ease comes to symbolize the intensely painful Catch-22 of
human egotism and human self-knowledge: we are unable to
stop wanting to think well of ourselves even though we know
Have you noticed that Amsterdam’s concentric canals
too much to think well of ourselves.
resemble the circles of hell?

QUO
QUOTES
TES Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), The Listener

Note: all page numbers for the quotes below refer to the Related Themes:
Vintage edition of The Fall published in 1991.
Page Number: 14
Pages 3-16 Quotes Explanation and Analysis
Anyone who has considerably meditated on man, by After meeting the unnamed listener in a bar, the narrator
profession or vocation, is led to feel nostalgia for the primates. offers to walk him partway back to his hotel. As they walk
They at least don’t have any ulterior motives. and talk, the narrator observes that “Amsterdam’s
concentric canals resemble the circles of hell.” Here the
Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), The Listener, narrator is referring not just to a Judeo-Christian theology
The Bartender of the afterlife but specifically to the Medieval Italian poet
Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy (c. 1321), an epic poem
Related Themes: divided into three parts corresponding to different places in
the Catholic Christian vision of the afterlife: hell, purgatory,
Page Number: 4 and heaven. In Dante’s Inferno, the first part of the Divine
Comedy, which describes hell, hell is divided into nine
Explanation and Analysis
“concentric” and descending circles.
The narrator has just ordered a drink for his unnamed
In general terms, the narrator’s allusion to Dante indicates
listener, who speaks French, from the bartender, who
that the narrator is well educated and that he finds Judeo-
speaks only Dutch. The narrator then briefly describes the
Christian narratives to be productive lenses through which
character of the bartender, who like all humankind has
to view the world—whether or not he himself is religious (as
“ulterior motives” despite being in other ways almost as
he will later claim he is not). More specifically, however, the
primitive as “the primates.” The narrator’s move from
allusion suggests an analogy between the main character of
describing the character of a particular individual (in this
the Divine Comedy—the living pilgrim Dante who journeys
case, the bartender) to making general claims about “man” is
through each part of the afterlife—and the listener, who is a
representative of his rhetoric throughout the novel: he
tourist in Amsterdam. That is, just as the pilgrim Dante
regularly condemns his own or some other person’s guilt,
tours hell, so the listener is touring Amsterdam, a city whose
egotism, or hypocrisy only to claim this bad behavior is
layout resembles that of hell.
endemic to humankind.
If the listener is the pilgrim Dante, then who is the narrator?
The narrator’s implication that “man,” unlike “the primates,”
In Dante’s Inferno, the pilgrim is guided through hell by the

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ghost of the ancient Roman poet Virgil (who in real life Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), The Listener
wrote the epic poem The Aeneid), a knowledgeable and
trustworthy figure. The narrator may, therefore, be trying to Related Themes:
cast himself as the Virgil to the listener’s Dante. Yet the
pilgrim Dante also speaks with damned souls and demons in Page Number: 18–19
hell—and the narrator’s allusion leaves open the possibility Explanation and Analysis
that he might be analogous to one of those instead. Thus,
even as the narrator seems to align himself with the During their second meeting, the narrator describes to his
trustworthy Virgil, his allusion may subtly foreshadow that unnamed listener—whom he calls “cher monsieur,” French for
he is trying to manipulate the listener for his own pernicious “dear sir”—his former career as a lawyer who took on many
ends. charitable pro bono cases. In describing his own motives for
charitable professional acts, the narrator cynically suggests
that judgmental tendencies (“the feeling of the law”),
Pages 17-41 Quotes egotism (“the joy of self-esteem”) and certain
sanctimonious, know-it-all qualities (“the satisfaction of
Of course, I didn’t tell you my real name. being right”) were what kept him “upright” and doing good
things.
Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), The Listener Characteristically, rather than limit his observations about
judgmental tendencies, egotism, and sanctimony as motives
Related Themes: for moral behavior to himself, the narrator generalizes to
“us,” an “us” that implicitly encompasses not only the
Page Number: 17 narrator but the listener and all humankind—including the
Explanation and Analysis novel’s readers. Thus, this passage illustrates the sleight-of-
hand method the narrator uses to condemn the listener and
Early in the narrator’s second meeting with his unnamed
all humanity (including readers) for his own sins and crimes.
listener, he casually admits that the name by which he
In so doing, it foreshadows the revelation at the novel’s end
introduced himself at their first meeting, Jean-Baptiste
that the narrator generalizes his own sins to others to avoid
Clamence, isn’t his “real name.” He claims that “of course” he
self-condemnation, dominate his listeners, and generally
didn’t give his real name because he used to be a famous
maintain a feeling of superiority.
lawyer in Paris, an identity he is trying to live down. Yet,
understandably, readers may wonder what else the narrator
has lied about or will lie about. That is, when the narrator
casually admits that he lied about his name, the admission A very Christian friend of mine admitted that one’s initial
calls the reliability of all his narration into question. feeling on seeing a beggar approach one’s house is
unpleasant. Well, with me it was worse: I used to exult.
The openly admitted unreliability of the narrator may cause
interpretive problems for readers in one sense—after all,
unless the narrator admits his lies to the listener after the Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), The Listener
fact, readers won’t know when he’s lying. Yet in another
sense, the narrator’s casually admitted lie is consistent with Related Themes:
his own character as he describes it to the listener: at
various points, he will condemn himself for domineering, Page Number: 21
manipulative, hypocritical, and two-faced behavior, all of Explanation and Analysis
which are consonant with his being a liar. Thus, in another
way, the narrator’s admitted lie subtly supports the negative The narrator is still explaining to his unnamed listener what
claims that he later makes about himself. he (the narrator) was like as a successful lawyer in Paris who
took on many charitable pro bono cases. Specifically, he is
describing how he engaged in charity as a private citizen as
well as in his profession—and how he “used to exult” at
The feeling of the law, the satisfaction of being right, the seeing poor and needy people such as “beggar[s]” because it
joy of self-esteem, cher monsieur, are powerful incentives gave him the opportunity to demonstrate his own
for keeping us upright or keeping us moving forward. generosity and goodness. The narrator contrasts his “very

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Christian friend” and himself to expose the common giving as one example his “prefer[ence]” of “the bus to the
hypocrisy of apparently quite different people. subway.” In one sense, this example seems to trivialize or
According to Catholic Christian ethics (as a Frenchman, the undermine the narrator’s point: is a preference for heights
narrator would have had a largely Catholic cultural milieu), and open air, a preference for buses over subways, really a
the so-called “corporal works of mercy” include such sublimated desire for domination and social superiority? On
practical charitable action as feeding the hungry, helping the the other hand, the example shows the narrator’s
homeless find shelter, and so on. Catholics are encouraged cleverness in his attempts to condemn all humanity: he
to perform such works of mercy promptly and generously. refuses to believe in innocent preferences, taking all desires
Moreover, in Christian theology generally, helping the poor as representative of human evils like egotism, the will to
and needy is tantamount to serving Jesus Christ himself. power, or fear of moral responsibility.
Thus, the “unpleasant” feeling that the Christian friend has In this way, a person who happens to prefer buses is
upon seeing a “beggar” presumably in need of help shows a condemned for lusting to dominate others—but a person
hypocritical gap between the friend’s professed Christian who prefers the subway can still be condemned for desiring
ethics and his or her emotional reactions. to be dominated and thereby avoiding his or her moral
On the other hand, as a secular humanist, the narrator responsibility. Thus, the narrator’s rhetorical move here
presumably ought not “exult” at the existence of poverty shows his love of double binds—of rhetorical traps that end
and poor people merely because poor people give him an with the condemnation of all humankind no matter the
opportunity to show off his generosity and goodness. In the specific characteristics of the person being condemned.
narrator’s case too, therefore, a hypocritical gap opens up
between what he nominally believes about poverty (that
poverty is a social evil) and how he reacts emotionally to That’s the way man is, cher monsieur. He has two faces: he
poverty (with egotistic joy, because poverty allows him to can’t love without self-love.
show off). By suggesting that both his Christian friend and
the narrator himself were hypocrites, the narrator subtly
forwards his argument that hypocrisy is an unavoidable flaw Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), The Listener,
in all human beings. The Woman in Black

Related Themes:

Even in the details of daily life, I needed to feel above. I Page Number: 33–34
preferred the bus to the subway, open carriages to taxis,
Explanation and Analysis
terraces to closed-in places.
The narrator has mentioned a fateful evening that
permanently changed his sense of himself—but rather than
Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), The Listener
tell the curious listener what happened on that evening
right away, he digresses, arguing that all human beings’ love
Related Themes:
for their friends is fundamentally egotistical to the point
Page Number: 23 that we enjoy our friends’ deaths because such deaths give
us the opportunity to grieve self-indulgently. He
Explanation and Analysis summarizes the point of this digression by saying that “man,”
The narrator is still explaining what he was like as a famous by nature, “has two faces: he can’t love without self-love.”
Parisian lawyer who took on many charitable cases. In this Through this digression, the narrator yet again seeks to
explanation, he moves from suggesting that his good works persuade the listener that humankind in general is
sprang from smug, egotistical motives (i.e., that he did the egotistical and hypocritical: fundamentally unable to escape
right thing because it made him feel good about himself, not our “self-love,” we can love others only from egotistical
because it was the right thing) to suggesting that they motives. Thus, a man who loves has “two faces”: the social
sprang from a secret desire to dominate others and be face that claims to love other people for themselves, and the
superior to them. inner face that is always, at base, self-centered. In other
The narrator makes this suggestion indirectly, pointing out words, a man who loves is always something of a hypocrite.
that “in the details of daily life” he “needed to feel above,” The narrator makes this argument to the listener before
revealing that the narrator became so cynical about

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humanity because one night, he himself failed to save a unnamed listener parallels the “substitut[ion]” of the
young woman in black from drowning in what seemed to “dialogue” for the “communiqué” that the narrator
have been an abortive suicide attempt. In this way, the describes: though the novel implies that the two men are
narrator frames his individual failure to help the woman in engaged in a dialogue, readers only have access to the
black as symptomatic of flaws universally shared by narrator’s side of the conversation and thus experience the
humanity—and thereby attempts to manipulate the listener novel as a “communiqué” from the narrator of his cynical
as interpreting the narrator’s failure as belonging to all opinions. Readers may infer that the narrator, in attempting
humanity and, indeed, to the listener himself. to impose his worldview on the listener through verbal
domination, is in a way attempting to impose his worldview
on them as well. Thus, the manipulated listener is an
Pages 42-71 Quotes audience stand-in and a stand-in for silent oppressed
people generally, whereas the narrator stands in for the
Power, on the other hand, settles everything. It took time,
oppressor who only wants to “show you we are right”
but we finally realized that. For instance, you must have noticed
without entertaining “objections.”
that our old Europe at last philosophizes in the right way. We
no longer say as in simple times: “This is the way I think. What
are your objections?” For the dialogue we have substituted the
communiqué: “This is the truth,” we say. “You can discuss it as You, for instance, mon cher compatriote, stop and think of
much as you want; we aren’t interested. But in a few years what your sign would be. You are silent? Well, you’ll tell me
there’ll be the police who will show you we are right.” later on. I know mine in any case: a double face, a charming
Janus, and above it the motto of the house: “Don’t rely on it.”
Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), The Listener
Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), The Listener
Related Themes:
Related Themes:
Page Number: 45
Page Number: 47
Explanation and Analysis
In his third conversation with the listener, the narrator is Explanation and Analysis
arguing that human relationships are characterized by The narrator and the listener have passed a shop sign
domination and submission—that in any given relationship, representing the heads of enslaved Black people, which the
people are effectively either the slave-masters or the narrator interprets to mean that historic owners of the shop
enslaved. Moreover, he argues that people need were in the slave trade. This incident leads the narrator to
relationships to operate according to a master-slave argue that enslavement is a natural consequence of people’s
dynamic because they are unable to tolerate freedom or desire to dominate others but that the modern age
indeterminacy and “power […] settles everything.” hypocritically denies the ongoing existence of slavery-like
When the narrator claims that “our old Europe at last exploitation. Finally, he asks the listener—whom he calls
philosophizes in the right way” and that Europeans are “mon cher compatriote,” French for “my dear
more interested in having their opinions enforced by “the countryman”—what a shop sign that expressed his inner
police” than in debating others as equals, he may be truth would be.
referring to totalitarian European governments such as When the listener chooses to be “silent” rather than to
Nazi Germany (1933–1945) or Stalinist Russia answer the narrator’s question, the narrator insinuatingly
(1927–1953), where secret police forces—the Gestapo in claims, “you’ll tell me later on.” This claim foreshadows the
the case of Nazi Germany, and various forces such as the revelation, late in the novel, that the narrator is trying to
NKVD in the case of Stalinist Russia—did indeed violently manipulate the listener into a self-condemning confession
impose ideological conformity. He is thus suggesting that so that the narrator can escape his own guilt and feel
the mass-murderous totalitarian regimes of the mid-20th superior to the listener.
century express a fundamental human intolerance for Moreover, the narrator once again playfully and disturbingly
freedom. hints at his own ulterior motives and unreliability when he
Interestingly, the relationship between the narrator and his claims that his own sign would be “a double face,”

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Pages 72-96 Quotes

symbolizing deceit and hypocrisy (Janus is a Roman god of
time, beginnings, and endings who is often depicted as I have no more friends; I have nothing but accomplices. To
having two faces looking in opposite directions), and that his make up for this, their number has increased; they are the
motto would be, “Don’t rely on it.” Even as the narrator whole human race. And within the human race, you first of all.
attempts to befriend, persuade, manipulate, and ultimately Whoever is at hand is always the first.
dominate the listener, he also hints that the listener
shouldn’t trust him. Readers may interpret these hints as Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), The Listener
signs of the narrator’s guilty conscience—or as evidence
that the narrator is so convinced he’ll succeed that he is Related Themes:
confidently toying with the listener.
Page Number: 73

Explanation and Analysis

Oh, I don’t know. Really, I don’t know. The next day, and the
The narrator and the listener have gone on a boating trip on
days following, I didn’t read the papers.
the Zuider Zee (a former bay that has since been dammed,
creating a freshwater lake). On the trip, the narrator
Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), The Listener, casually refers to his friends—only to correct himself, saying
The Woman in Black that he has “no more friends” but only “accomplices.” An
accomplice is someone who associates with or provides aid
Related Themes: to a criminal; thus, by calling the people around him
“accomplices,” the narrator is casting himself as a criminal.
Page Number: 71 The narrator’s claims here yet again foreshadow the
Explanation and Analysis revelation at the novel’s end that he is using his own self-
condemning stories to manipulate the listener into his own
The narrator has just recounted to his unnamed listener the self-condemning confession—a confession that the narrator
fateful event that destroyed his unconsidered self-esteem will use to escape his own guilty conscience and feel
and precipitated his existential crisis: one night, he was superior to someone.
crossing a bridge when he passed by a woman in black—who
jumped into the water. Though she cried out afterward, he First, by saying that his accomplices encompass “the whole
didn’t try to help her but simply froze and then walked on. human race,” the narrator suggests that his own guilt makes
At the end of the conversation, as the narrator and the everyone else guilty by association. This suggestion accords
listener are saying their goodbyes, it is implied that the with the narrator’s tendency elsewhere to argue from his
listener asks the narrator what happened to the woman—to own will to power, egotism, and hypocrisy that every person
which the narrator admits that he “didn’t read the papers” suffers from these flaws. Second, when the narrator claims
and so doesn’t “know.” that the listener is his accomplice “first of all,” he is
essentially revealing—before the final revelation—that he
Readers can interpret the narrator’s decision not to read wants the listener to feel culpable for the narrator’s own
the newspapers to find out whether the woman in black sins, flaws, and failings. Thus, in this passage, the narrator
died or was saved by someone else in at least two ways. On yet again ambiguously warns his listener about his own bad
the one hand, readers can interpret his avoidance of the intentions—while at the same time subtly insisting that the
information as symptomatic of genuine guilt, guilt so listener and all humanity are guilty and deserving of his
overwhelming that he cannot bring himself to discover the judgment.
possible consequences of his culpable inaction. On the
other hand, they can interpret his avoidance as
overwhelmingly egotistical—as evidence that what matters
to the narrator about the story is not whether the woman in To be sure, I knew my failings and regretted them. Yet I
black died, but only how he conducted himself, so that the continued to forget them with a rather meritorious
woman’s survival or death matters not at all in comparison obstinacy. The prosecution of others, on the contrary, went on
to the narrator’s own revealed cowardice. constantly in my heart. Of course—does that shock you? Maybe
you think it’s not logical? But the question is not to remain
logical. The question is to slip through and, above all—yes,
above all, the question is to elude judgment.

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Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), The Listener Page Number: 82

Related Themes: Explanation and Analysis
The narrator has just theorized for his unnamed listener the
Page Number: 76
relationship between people’s self-judgment, egotism, and
Explanation and Analysis hypocrisy: if people have any self-knowledge, they know
Here the narrator is describing to his unnamed listener his they have flaws. Due to their egotism, however, they want
perhaps counterintuitive reaction to realizing his own to think well of themselves and want others to think well of
“failings,” which he “regretted”: he tried to “forget them” them, and so they hypocritically forget or hide their own
while mentally engaging in the “prosecution of others.” flaws while projecting those flaws onto others, harshly
While the narrator concedes that this reaction is “not judging them. Now the narrator goes on to theorize the
logical”—and is, by implication, quite hypocritical—he makes relationship between these phenomena and the human
clear that his purpose was not “to remain logical” but “to desire “for power,” arguing that people want to be powerful
elude judgment.” The narrator’s explanation of his former because power—particularly in the form of
mental state helps clarify the relationships among “wealth”—insulates people from others’ “immediate
judgment, egotism, and hypocrisy in the novel. judgment.”

This quotation suggests that human beings’ self-judgment The narrator’s theory of power not only adds complexity to
and their natural egotism combine to make them his account of human nature but also nuances his own
hypocritical. Like the narrator who “knew” and “regretted” characterization. Earlier, the narrator admitted to his
his “failings,” most people want to be good and meritorious, listener that he loved heights, implicitly because climbing
but any amount of self-knowledge makes them aware that “above” other people physically helped him feel superior to
they nevertheless sometimes fail. This knowledge wounds them. Here, readers can trace an analogy between the
their egotism because they want to retain a good opinion of narrator’s love of heights and rich people’s love of
themselves—and they want others to retain a good opinion “isolate[d]” wealthy spaces such as “huge protected lawns”
of them as well. This egotistical desire to retain a good and “first-class cabins”: both high places and isolated places
opinion of oneself makes people want “to forget” one’s physically symbolize a desire to be apart from and superior
flaws, while the desire to retain the good opinion of others to other people. Thus, when the narrator makes this general
makes them hypocritically hide their flaws. Moreover, the condemnation of “their” desire to be rich, he is condemning
narrator suggests, egotism makes people project their a desire for power to avoid judgment that he himself shares.
knowledge of their own flaws outward, “prosecut[ing]”
other people outwardly or internally for “failings” that they
ignore in themselves. In sum, when the narrator argues that Then I realized, as a result of delving in my memory, that
people are judgmental, egotistical, and hypocritical, these modesty helped me to sin, humility to conquer, and virtue
are not separate but related psychological phenomena. to oppress.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), The Listener

As I told you, it’s a matter of dodging judgment. Since it is
hard to dodge it, tricky to get one’s nature simultaneously Related Themes:
admired and excused, they all strive to be rich. Why? Did you
ever ask yourself? For power, of course. But especially because Page Number: 84
wealth shields from immediate judgment, takes you out of the
Explanation and Analysis
subway crowd to enclose you in a chromium-plated
automobile, isolates you in huge protected lawns, Pullmans, The narrator continues to explain to his unnamed listener
first-class cabins. how remembering his own failings caused his worldview to
dramatically evolve. Here, he is explaining the conclusion he
came to that his previous adherence to conventional
Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), The Listener morality was a hypocritical cover for egotism and lust for
power.
Related Themes:
The narrator expresses this conclusion using a rhetorical
device called “antithesis,” the yoking together of

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contradictory concepts in grammatical parallel: “modesty either sprinkling water over someone’s head or immersing
[…] to sin,” “humility to conquer,” and “virtue to oppress.” them fully in water to represent their spiritual rebirth in
Through this antithesis, he suggests that modesty, humility Jesus Christ. In Catholic Christianity—the dominant form of
and virtue are really agents of sin, conquest, and Christianity in France, where the narrator and the listener
oppression: by displaying his apparent moral strengths, he are from—baptism is practiced specifically to cleanse human
manipulated others into admiring his “virtue” while beings of “original sin,” an automatic and shared state of
pretending “modesty” and “humility.” Yet in fact, his sinfulness into which all human beings have been born since
manipulation of others sprang from a sinful, egotistical the Fall of Man, the transition of humanity from innocence
desire to dominate their reactions and to appear to guilty experiential knowledge in the Judeo-Christian
hypocritically better than he really was. tradition.
Since the narrator habitually argues that all humanity It is somewhat counterintuitive for the narrator to refer to
shares his failings, readers can interpret his claim about his the water in which the woman in black may have drowned
own bad use of conventional morality as an implicit claim as “the bitter water of [his] baptism.” While her fall into the
that all conventional morality tends to hypocritically cover water may represent the narrator’s fall from innocent or
for evil. This claim is presumably part of the narrator’s ignorant egotism into knowledge of his own evil—and thus
attempt to manipulate the listener into self-condemnation: echo the Judeo-Christian Fall of Man—baptism represents
after all, if every externally good action must have bad by contrast the removal of sin and the forgiveness of sins. The
motives, then a person must be bad whether they commit narrator may therefore be suggesting that he had to realize
good or bad actions—and so every person, including the his own sinfulness—to lose his innocence in the woman in
listener, is implicated in evil. black’s literal fall and his own figurative fall—in order to seek
forgiveness.

Pages 97-118 Quotes

I realized likewise that it would continue to await me on I had to submit and admit my guilt. I had to live in the little-
seas and rivers, everywhere, in short, where lies the bitter ease. To be sure, you are not familiar with that dungeon-
water of my baptism. cell that was called the little-ease in the Middle Ages. In
general, one was forgotten there for life. That cell was
distinguished from others by ingenious dimensions. It was not
Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), The Listener,
high enough to stand up in nor yet wide enough to lie down in.
The Woman in Black

Related Themes: Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), The Listener,

The Woman in Black
Page Number: 108
Related Themes:
Explanation and Analysis
The narrator is explaining to his unnamed listener how, after Related Symbols:
he remembered the incident in which he failed to intervene
in a young woman’s suicide by drowning, he attempted to Page Number: 109
block out his own sense of inadequacy through sexual
excess and alcoholic abuse—and he thought he had Explanation and Analysis
succeeded until, one day, he went on a cruise and panicked The narrator is explaining to his unnamed listener his state
when he mistook a piece of trash in the water for a of mind after he realized that he would never successfully
drowning person. This experience let him to realize that he repress his guilty memories of failing to save the woman in
would never block out his memory of the woman in black, black from suicide by drowning. He compares this state of
which would follow him “everywhere […] where lies the “submit[ting] to guilt” with “liv[ing] in the little-ease,” a
bitter water of [his] baptism.” Medieval torture device that consisted of a tiny room “not
When the narrator calls the water in which the woman in high enough to stand up in nor yet wide enough to lie down
black jumped to die by suicide “the bitter water of [his] in.”
baptism,” he is alluding to the Christian practice of baptism, Here, the narrator is self-consciously using the little-ease as

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Pages 119-147 Quotes

a symbol of egotism’s torturous Catch-22. Due to his
egotism, the narrator is intensely preoccupied with himself Justice being definitively separated from innocence—the
and therefore knows himself a little too well not to realize latter on the cross and the former in the cupboard—I have the
his own guilt, failings, and flaws. He cannot “lie down” and way clear to work according to my convictions.
relax in blissful ignorance. Yet on the other hand, also due to
his egotism, he cannot give up his unrealistic sense that he Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), The Listener
ought to be flawless. He cannot “stand up” and make the
paradoxically non-egotistical choice to freely forgive Related Themes:
himself. Thus, the torture device of the little-ease is the
narrator’s own symbol for the psychological torment that Related Symbols:
the combination of egotism and self-knowledge causes him.
Page Number: 130

Explanation and Analysis

They have hoisted him onto a judge’s bench, in the secret
of their hearts, and they smite, they judge above all, they The listener has visited the narrator while the narrator is
judge in his name. He spoke softly to the adulteress: “Neither lying in bed at home with a fever. There, the narrator reveals
do I condemn thee!” but that doesn’t matter; they condemn to the listener that he has in his possession a stolen
without absolving anyone. painting, Van Eyck’s “The Just Judges,” a 15th-century
altarpiece panel really stolen from the Saint Bavo Cathedral
in Ghent, Belgium in 1934 and never recovered.
Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker)
When the listener asks why the narrator hasn’t given the
stolen painting to the police, the narrator offers a series of
Related Themes:
specious self-justifications before finally claiming that with
Page Number: 115 “justice” (i.e. the painting, the “Just Judges”) “in the
cupboard” (where he hides the painting) and “innocence”
Explanation and Analysis (i.e., Jesus Christ) “on the cross,” he is able “to work
The narrator is contrasting the behavior of Jesus Christ according to his convictions.” By “his convictions,” the
with the behavior of subsequent Christians. To do so, he narrator is referring to his practice of escaping his own
alludes to John 8:1-11. In this New Testament passage, guilty conscience by manipulating others into self-
Jesus’ enemies bring to him a woman caught committing condemnation, which allows the narrator to feel
adultery, point out that in Mosaic Law (i.e., the first five comparatively superior to those he judges. He has been
books of the Old Testament) women caught in adultery are practicing just this sort of manipulation on the listener
condemned to death by stoning, and ask what Jesus says to throughout the novel.
that. Jesus replies that someone who has never committed The narrator’s claim that he can do what he does because
a sin should be the first to throw a stone at the woman. At “justice” is “in the cupboard” and “innocence” (Jesus Christ)
that, the crowd disperses, leaving Jesus with the woman; he is “on the cross” suggests that the stolen, hidden painting
tells her “Neither do I condemn thee!” (i.e., he won’t stone symbolizes moral standards that people consider objective
her either) and gently encourages her to leave. and that they can use to evaluate themselves and others.
Jesus’ actions in John 8:1–11, to which the narrator alludes That the painting—whose title, “The Just Judges,” associates
here, clearly illustrate Jesus’ lack of interest in occupying “a it with authoritative and legitimate judgment—is no longer
judge’s bench”: Jesus refuses to condemn the woman in public view but is hidden in the possession of a single man
caught in adultery to death. By contrast, according to the represents how, in a secular world where shared religious
narrator, Christians “judge in his name” and “condemn and ethical believes cannot be assumed (a world where
without absolving anyone”—that is, Christians twist Jesus’ Jesus Christ is not alive but crucified “on the cross”), every
teaching, which emphasized repentance and forgiveness, so individual is free to assert (and indeed condemned to
that they can indulge in judgmental behavior and dominate assert) their own subjective values without external
others through social policing of morality. The narrator’s support. Still, people can of course misuse this cultural and
admiration for Jesus Christ and his contrasting disdain for ethical freedom—as the narrator misuses it by attempting
Christians help to explain his consistent allusion to Judeo- to victimize the listener.
Christian narratives despite his expressed contempt for
organized religion.

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Alone in a forbidding room, alone in the prisoner’s box
before the judges, and alone to decide in the face of The Woman in Black
oneself or in the face of others’ judgment. At the end of all
freedom is a court sentence; that’s why freedom is too heavy to Related Themes:
bear, especially when you’re down with a fever, or are
Page Number: 147
distressed, or love nobody.
Explanation and Analysis
Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), The Listener At the novel’s very end, the narrator encourages the listener
to confess that he (the listener) failed to save the young
Related Themes: woman in black from her suicide by drowning—that is,
confess to the exact same guilt that the narrator claims
Page Number: 133 precipitated his own existential crisis—and suggests that
Explanation and Analysis the listener should ask the woman in black to jump into the
water again so that he might have a second chance of saving
The narrator is explaining to his unnamed listener why he is
her. Then the narrator, bizarrely, adds that “fortunately” it
in favor of domination, slavery, and oppression, all means of
“will always be too late” to save her because “the water’s so
stealing individuals’ freedom. He defends this position by
cold.”
claiming that freedom leaves people “alone,” a word he
emphatically repeats to underscore that free choice is There are two ways to interpret this peculiar conclusion to
something inherently possessed by individuals, not groups. the novel. On the one hand, the narrator may be suggesting
that he and the listener (and, implicitly, the reader) have
Specifically, freedom leaves individuals “alone” to face “a
learned nothing from all the narrator’s guilt, psychological
court sentence.” By this, the narrator seems to mean that
torment, and soul-searching throughout the novel—that if
being free makes individuals responsible for their own
confronted with the same situation that precipitated the
choices (“alone to decide”). This freedom of choice and its
narrator’s existential crisis, the narrator would fail out of
accompanying moral responsibility then expose individuals
egotism, avoidance of responsibility, and cowardice (fear of
to their own and others’ judgment. The narrator believes
the “so cold” water) in the exact same way he failed the first
that this “court sentence”—self-judgment and social
time—as all individuals, including the listener, would
judgment—makes free choice “too heavy to bear."
similarly fail.
Here, as usual, the narrator makes sweeping claims about
On the other hand, the word “fortunately” may have a
humankind, arguing that each human individual is too weak
specifically religious meaning in the Catholic Christian
to stand being “alone to decide.” Yet the narrator’s final
cultural context to which the novel alludes. In the Catholic
qualifying statement—that this is true “especially when
tradition, the stock Latin phrase felix culpa, which literally
you're down with a fever, or are distressed, or love
means “happy fault,” “lucky fault” or “fortunate fault,” refers
nobody”—hints that this sweeping claim is especially true of
to original sin and the Fall of Man. (“Felix culpa” is translated
the narrator himself, who is feverish at the time of giving
as “heurese faute” in French, where “heuresement” means
this speech, seems perennially “distressed” by his past flaws
both “happily” and “fortunately.”) In the Catholic tradition,
and failings, and has repeatedly told the listener that he
original sin and the Fall of Man are called “happy” or
“love[s] nobody” but himself. Thus, readers are made to
“fortunate” faults because they lead to the incarnation of
wonder whether the narrator is really describing a general
Jesus Christ and humanity’s total redemption—an outcome
human tendency—or whether he is describing himself and
perhaps even better than humanity’s merely remaining
illicitly generalizing that description to other people.
sinlessly ignorant of good and evil would have been.
Thus, in the novel’s final moment, the narrator’s exclamation
“fortunately” may allude to the theology of felix culpa to
Brr . . . ! The water’s so cold! But let’s not worry! It’s too suggest that his failure to save the woman in black was
late now. It will always be too late. Fortunately! actually the best outcome—because it brought him self-
knowledge and thus the possibility of true repentance and
Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), The Listener, redemption.

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SUMMARY AND ANAL

ANALYSIS
YSIS
The color-coded icons under each analysis entry make it easy to track where the themes occur most prominently throughout the
work. Each icon corresponds to one of the themes explained in the Themes section of this LitChart.

PAGES 3-16
The narrator, speaking to a listener whom he calls “monsieur,” When the narrator calls the listener “monsieur,” it implies that both
offers to order a gin on behalf of the listener from the men are French, though the novel takes place in Amsterdam. Cro-
bartender, who speaks only Dutch. The narrator goes on to say Magnons are the early modern humans who first populated Europe
that the bartender’s refusal to learn other languages is odd, almost 60,000 years ago. By calling the bartender a “Cro-Magnon,”
especially since he named his bar Mexico City. He calls the the narrator implies contempt for the bartender’s primitive
bartender a “Cro-Magnon” and says that whereas mere personality. At the same time, the narrator suggests that the
primates have no “ulterior motives,” the bartender has a few bartender lacks even the virtues of primitive man: “society has
such motives and, as a result, distrusts others. For example, he somewhat spoiled” him, making him distrustful and deceitful. In this
took and relinquished the painting that used to hang over the way, the narrator implies that human society is characterized by
bar “with the same distrust.” The narrator concludes that pretense and hypocrisy, in contrast with Cro-Magnon purity. Finally,
“society has somewhat spoiled” the bartender’s native the narrator’s early reference to the painting over the bar hints that
innocence. the painting may become relevant later in the story.

The narrator says he himself is very inclined to make friends. The narrator’s claim that he hasn’t heard the word “fascinating”
He accepts the listener’s invitation to have another drink and since he left Paris implies that he and the listener may both be from
asks how long the listener will stay in Amsterdam. Struck by the Paris originally. Meanwhile, when the narrator claims that
listener calling the city “fascinating,” the narrator says he hasn’t Europeans are obsessed with intellectualism and sex, he implies
heard that word since he left Paris. He claims Parisians are that Europeans are hypocritical, preoccupied with appearing smart
obsessed solely with intellectualism and sex—as are all and idea-oriented while actually focused on base physical sexuality.
Europeans, the Dutch excepted. Implying that the men in the The narrator’s condemnation of hypocrisy continues when he
bar are violent pimps and the women sex workers, the narrator argues that the pimps and sex workers in the bar are “more moral”
suggests they are “more moral” than people who slowly murder than people who slowly murder their families, an argument that
their own families in the domestic sphere. implies conventional domestic life is stultifying, false, and deathly to
the free human spirit.

The bartender brings the narrator and listener gin. The The narrator doesn’t immediately explain what the peculiar term
narrator explains that the bartender only called him “doctor” “judge-penitent” means. While both “lawyer” and “judge” are
because the Dutch call everyone that—in fact, he was lawyer professions associated with questions of guilt and innocence in the
and is now a “judge-penitent.” He introduces himself as Jean- legal realm, a “penitent” is a religiously connoted word for someone
Baptiste Clemance. Then he guesses that the listener is about who repents of their sins. Thus, a “judge-penitent” might be a person
the narrator’s age, somewhere in his 40s, and a “cultured who both judges others and accepts judgment themselves.
bourgeois” who finds the narrator amusing. The narrator then Meanwhile, the Sadducees were an elite Jewish sect active circa
asks the listener whether he owns anything. When the listener 167 BCE to 73 CE, which did not believe in an afterlife. The
says yes, the narrator asks whether the listener has shared his Christian New Testament mentions them as enemies of Jesus
belongings with the poor. When the listener says no, the Christ. That both the narrator and the listener are familiar with the
narrator calls him a “Sadducee”—and expresses interest when term Sadducee suggests they are familiar with Judeo-Christianity,
the listener knows the term. whether or not they are believers.

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The narrator encourages the listener to judge him by his The narrator encourages the listener to judge him—but he also
appearance, pointing to his own ragged coat but neat points to contradictory evidence from his appearance: a ragged coat
fingernails. He also points out his presence in a dingy bar but neat fingernails. He also calls himself and all other human
despite his high-flown way of speaking. He calls himself beings “double,” suggesting that humanity is plagued by internal
“double” by profession: a judge-penitent, the way all human conflict and hypocrisy. Finally, he continues to use the Judeo-
beings are double by nature. He also says that while he is now Christian term “Sadducee” to describe himself and the listener,
poor, he used to be a rich Sadducee like the listener. indicating that he believes religious history and stories can be useful
lenses for interpreting reality whether or not he believes in religious
dogma.

When the listener indicates that he’s leaving, the narrator The Fall was published in 1956, 11 years after the end of World
offers to walk him back to his hotel, located near the narrator’s War II (1939–1945) and the Holocaust, Nazi Germany’s genocide
neighborhood, which was called the “Jewish quarter” until the against Jewish people in Europe. When the narrator says that his
Holocaust. The narrator comments that the Holocaust helps neighborhood was called the “Jewish quarter” until the Holocaust,
him understand the bartender’s suspiciousness of others. He he is implying that it was a Jewish neighborhood but that its
adds that the most trusting, loving man the narrator ever knew residents were murdered by Nazis. His subsequent comments—that
was murdered by a “militia” in his own home. the Holocaust helps him understand the bartender’s suspiciousness
and that the best man he knew was murdered by a militia—suggest
that the totalitarian, anti-Semitic politics of Nazi Germany have
fundamentally shaped his understanding of human nature as well
as of political power and domination.

Outside, the narrator claims that the Dutch evoke his The Dutch officially colonized what is now modern Indonesia as the
talkativeness due to their doubleness: they are businesspeople Dutch East Indies from 1800–1945. In 1945, Indonesia declared
who live in an Indonesian dream world. He asks the listener independence, after which the Netherlands and Indonesia fought in
whether he’s ever remarked that the “concentric canals” of the Indonesian War of Independence until 1949, a war that ended
Amsterdam resemble Dante’s nine circles of hell. He calls with the Dutch agreeing to recognize Indonesian independence.
Amsterdam’s wharf the final circle of hell and says he waits for When the narrator claims that the Dutch live in an Indonesian
travelers here in Mexico City. He bids farewell to the listener at dream world, he suggests that the Dutch are dreamily nostalgic for
a bridge, saying that he has sworn never to walk across bridges their colonial domination of Indonesia despite their reputation as
at night lest “someone should jump in the water.” hardnosed businesspeople—another example of humanity’s internal
contradictions and hypocrisies. Meanwhile, his comparison of
Amsterdam’s “concentric canals” to the circles of Hell in Dante
Alighieri’s Divine Comedy (c. 1321) again indicates that religious
stories are useful lenses for understanding modern life even in the
absence of religious belief. Finally, his odd claim that he avoids
bridges so as not to encounter jumpers hints that he has had such
an encounter in the past.

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PAGES 17-41
At a later meeting, the narrator says that he can tell the listener When the narrator admits that he gave the listener a false name,
what a “judge-penitent” is, but he’ll have to explain a few other readers may wonder what else the narrator may lie about—and
facts first. He admits that he gave the listener a false name whether he is at all reliable. Meanwhile, the narrator’s claim that he
earlier. In fact, the narrator used to be a famous Parisian lawyer used to find judges’ profession peculiar indicates that he wasn’t (or
who focused on charitable cases with victimized defendants, believed he wasn’t) inclined to judge others—something that has
both because he liked “being on the right side” and because he likely changed, given his new vocation of “judge-penitent.” His claim
disdained judges, whose profession he found entirely peculiar. that he worked as a defense attorney because he liked “being on the
As an aside, he mentions that people can’t live without “the joy right side” and his assertion that people can’t live without “the joy of
of self-esteem,” going so far as to claim people will be driven to self-esteem,” on the other hand, indicate that the main driver of his
murder if they lose that feeling. actions—and everyone’s actions—is egotism.

The narrator claims that he was excellently positioned for self- The narrator hints that he avoided corruption out of egotism so that
esteem as a lawyer. He avoided corruption, financial and he could think well of himself—a hint suggesting that people behave
otherwise. He never toadied up to anyone, and he represented well to protect themselves from self-judgment and the judgment of
poor clients for free without bragging about it. However, his others, which might damage their egos. Yet he also hints that his do-
love of performing charitable acts eventually overwhelmed gooder behavior was pathological, hypocritical, or secretly immoral:
him. He would fight other well-meaning persons to help a blind arguably, the “right” reaction to a beggar is sadness, not rejoicing at
person cross the street would rejoice to see beggars for the joy an opportunity to behave admirably.
of giving them money, even as one devoutly Christian friend of
his confessed in embarrassment that their first reaction to
seeing beggars was negative.

The narrator also claims that he had excellent manners. People Despite the narrator’s apparent charitableness, he implies that he
thought he was charitable for his giving—as indeed he was. gave to charity because he “needed to feel above”: in other words,
Then he notes that he was always “needed to feel above,” even that his generosity was a way of dominating the “human ants” and
physically—he likes heights, for example high balconies above feeding his own ego. The Garden of Eden is the birthplace of
the “human ants.” Working as a lawyer gratified these tastes in humanity in Judeo-Christianity, where the first humans lived in
the narrator. He was always indebting others to him and never innocence before they gained knowledge of good and evil. By
indebted to others, always judging the judges and never judged comparing his prior life to human life in the Garden, the narrator
by them. He speculates that some murderers he defended suggests that at the time, he was innocently ignorant of his own bad
committed their crimes to become famous—while he got more motives for good behavior.
permanently and blamelessly famous as a defense attorney on
high-profile cases. The narrator compares his life then to living
in the Garden of Eden.

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The narrator insists to the listener that his life back then was The phrase “burning bush” is an allusion to the Judeo-Christian
basically perfect, occasionally hedonistic, and socially Book of Exodus, in which God speaks to the prophet Moses out of a
satisfying. Though a mere officer’s son, he sometimes felt like a bush that burns without being consumed by the first. In the
prince or a “burning bush.” He felt that he was not merely Catholic tradition—to which the narrator, a Frenchman, presumably
superlatively intelligent, but somehow chosen. The narrator belongs—the burning bush is sometimes interpreted as
remarks that his feeling of being chosen was particularly foreshadowing Mary’s virgin birth of Jesus Christ. Thus, when the
strange as he was in no way religious. He admits that he narrator says he felt like a “burning bush” despite his own lack of
continues to yearn for the years he felt that way, which religiosity, he is essentially saying that he had a Messiah
continued “until the evening when . . .” Then he cuts himself off. complex—and suggesting the importance of religious stories to his
interpretation of the world despite his own status as an unbeliever.
Meanwhile, his reference to “the evening when . . .” hints at a
traumatic event in his past he is not yet ready to reveal.

The narrator suggests that, on the other hand, perhaps he is The narrator admits that he was “satisfied with nothing” even in the
overestimating the joys of his prior life. After all, he was charitable, ego-supporting period of his life, another detail
hedonistically “satisfied with nothing” until the fateful day he indicating that people are fundamentally conflicted and “double.” At
mentioned. The narrator calls the bartender for another drink the same time, the narrator’s claim that one’s friends and family are
and admits that he wants his listener to give him fundamentally hostile forces in one’s life echoes his earlier claim
“understanding,” even as he thinks that understanding is a far that people kill one another slowly in domestic life—claims that
shallower emotion than friendship—though, as to that, one’s suggest conventional domesticity and morality are stifling,
friends can push one to die by suicide, and one’s family is always hypocritical, and anti-individualistic.
on the attack.

When the listener asks the narrator about the “evening” he When the narrator argues that human beings prefer dead friends to
mentioned earlier, the narrator encourages the listener to wait living ones because with the dead “there is no obligation,” he implies
and claims that his discussion of friendship is (sort of) on topic. that human beings like control and domination—and we have total
He goes on to argue that we’re more generous with and control over our relationships with the dead. In the same vein, he
admiring of our dead friends than our living ones because with argues that people “can’t love without self-love,” indicating that even
dead people “there is no obligation”—we have to spend only as apparently other-directed feelings are, deep down, egotistical. Thus,
much time on them as we want. Moreover, we enjoy the the narrator forwards a cynical view of human beings and their
emotional suffering of grief: people “can’t love without self- emotions as power-hungry and unavoidably self-involved.
love.”

The narrator tells a story about how he had a genuinely nasty The anecdotes that the narrator provides here further his claims
concierge. Despite the concierge’s nastiness, the narrator went that human beings are hypocritical, internally contradictory, and
to his funeral. He asks, rhetorically, whether the listener can “double.” When he attends his nasty concierge’s funeral, for example,
explain this decision. Additionally, the concierge’s wife, who he hypocritically playacts grief for the social approval of others
mourned her husband theatrically and spent a lot of money on despite not feeling it. In the same vein, the respectable man who
his funeral, nevertheless began cohabiting with another man a pretended to love his wife but was actually motivated by boredom
month later, a man who violently abused her. Appearances and love of “drama” was similarly hypocritical and self-deceived.
notwithstanding, the narrator claims that nothing proves the
wife didn’t love the concierge or the man who beat her.
Moreover, he argues people who seem more respectable are
“no more faithful” and gives as an example a man who realized
after 20 years of self-sacrificing marriage to a stupid woman
that he didn’t care about her—he’d stayed with her out of
boredom and a desire for “drama.”

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The narrator says that, on the decisive evening mentioned On the evening of the narrator’s “fall” from innocence and egotism,
earlier, he was walking along the quays of the Seine after a he suddenly heard mocking laughter. This mocking laughter hints
day’s philanthropic work and successful socializing. He was that someone had judged him and found him wanting, a judgment
feeling strong and whole when he heard laughter. He searched that disturbed his complacent self-regard. After realizing that
for the person laughing but saw no one, though he heard the someone had judged him, the narrator saw a “double” smile in the
laugh again. His heart was beating hard, and he was struggling mirror, a detail symbolizing the narrator’s realization of his own
to breathe. Later that night, at home, he heard laughter from internal contradictions and hypocrisies.
outside, saw people on the sidewalk, and dismissed the sound.
Yet when he went to the bathroom, he saw a “double” smile in
the mirror.

Abruptly, the narrator promises to meet up with the listener This is the second time the narrator has alluded to art and
the next day. Now, however, he has to go give legal advice to a paintings, hinting that they may become relevant later in the novel.
murderous art burglar who pulled off a notorious painting Meanwhile, when the narrator argues that if “decent people”
theft. When the listener asks what painting the burglar stole, believed they were “constantly innocent” then life would be absurd,
the narrator suggests he may reveal that information later. He he implies that all people are fundamentally guilty—though he
also says that while primarily a “judge-penitent,” he also gives doesn’t yet reveal what he thinks everyone is guilty of.
legal advice to the people in the bar, partly out of principle: by
keeping criminals from always being punished, he keeps
“decent people” from believing that they’re “constantly
innocent,” a state of affairs that would turn life into an
absurdity.

PAGES 42-71
The narrator tells the listener that he largely stopped thinking The laughter permanently affected the narrator’s mood even as he
about the laughter after a few days—but he began avoiding the supposedly forgot about it, which suggests that its implied mockery
quays and became melancholy. Then he suggests to the listener and judgment damaged his all-important ego. Meanwhile, his claim
that they walk around outside. Outside, the narrator points out that slavery still occurs “at home” and “in factories” indicates that
a house with a sign decorated by Black slaves. He explains that women are still domestically exploited and working-class people are
the house must have once belonged to a slave merchant. Then still economically exploited—but that it’s now considered socially
he suggests that while slavery functionally still occurs “at home” inappropriate to brag about (or potentially even acknowledge) that
and “in factories,” liberal-minded men would now never brag exploitation. Thus, the narrator cynically argues that society is more
about it. hypocritical now than it was when slavery was celebrated—because
humanity still allows slavery but now pretends it doesn’t.

The narrator claims that domination and oppression are With his earlier allusions to the Holocaust, the narrator referred to
completely natural: everyone wants to dominate someone else. totalitarian political domination as a major social problem. Now he
Even poor, powerless men dominate women, children, or pets. argues that domination is a fundamental human drive of which
And domination is necessary because rational dispute never everyone is guilty: people want power in order to “settle[]
ends—whereas “power,” according to the narrator, “settles everything” and are willing to use “the police” to back up their views
everything.” He gives as an example European philosophy, if they can rather than live with dispute and uncertainty.
where (he claims) philosophers used to solicit responses from
people who might disagree with them but now simply insist on
their own rightness and claim that “the police” will back them
up in the future.

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The narrator claims that slavery is “inevitable” but that it’s Here the narrator hints that human beings have begun to
better to pretend that it doesn’t exist to protect the happiness hypocritically deny the “inevitable” existence of slavery to protect
of enslaved people and the self-esteem of enslavers. Hence, their own egos—that is, their own sense of moral goodness and
people should hide their too-accurate shop-signs. He then asks innocence—even though all humans are guilty of wanting to
the listener to imagine what the listener’s shop-sign would look dominate others. When he claims that his own accurate shop sign
like if accurate. When the listener doesn’t reply, the narrator and business card would show a “double face” and call him a “play
says that the listener will tell him later—and that his own sign actor,” he simultaneously acknowledges his own hypocrisy—and
would be “a double face,” while his business card would say casts further doubt on his reliability as a narrator.
“play actor.” He then recalls how he used to tip his hat to the
blind people he helped across the street—not for their benefit,
but for onlookers.

The narrator says that he’s always been an egotistical braggart Again, the narrator simultaneously judges his own extreme
who secretly believed that he was better than everyone at egotism—while implying elsewhere that everyone is just as
everything—or, when he wasn’t better, that he could have been egotistical and self-involved as he is. Readers may wonder what his
if he had tried harder or practiced more. He only ever cared motive is for condemning himself so harshly to a near-stranger, the
about other people to bolster his ego. He learned these facts unnamed listener.
about himself slowly, in pieces, after the evening he has
mentioned. To learn these facts, he claims, he had to teach
himself to remember: he used to forget everything except
himself.

The narrator starts giving examples of what he learned when With the anecdote of the traffic altercation, the narrator again uses
he began remembering. He describes a traffic altercation himself as a negative example of what he has elsewhere argued is a
where he exited his car to fight a rude motorcyclist only for an general human tendency: the desire to “dominate in all things.”
onlooker to punch him in the ear. While he was recovering his Furthermore, he suggests that people want to “dominate in all
wits, the motorcyclist rode off, so he simply got back in his car things” simply because such domination protects their egos. Thus,
and drove away. Afterward, he for days fantasized about what the narrator continues his strategy of judging and condemning all
he ought to have done instead, for example beating up his humanity by describing himself in hugely negative terms, implying
assailant, driving after the motorcyclist, and beating the that these negative terms apply to everyone.
motorcyclist up too. He tells the listener that remembering this
event made him understand that he had wanted “to dominate
in all things”—and that the motorcyclist incident damaged the
illusion that he did, in fact, so dominate.

The narrator adds that this incident also made him realize that The narrator previously claimed that, prior to the evening of the
he only wanted to defend guilty people when they hadn’t mysterious laughter, he didn’t understand judges’ profession. Yet
harmed him personally. If someone did harm him, he became a afterward, having gained greater self-understanding, he realized
harsh, unforgiving judge. He goes on to tell the listener about that he himself was hugely judgmental if anyone crossed him. In the
his love life, claiming that though he had many affairs with same vein, he realized that all his romantic relationships ultimately
women and esteemed them highly, his “great love” was himself. existed in service of his only “great love,” himself, and that as a result
He treated his relationships with women like a “game” and his relationships with women were always, deep down, a “game,” a
acted out little parts to seduce them. For example, he would form of hypocritical playacting.
claim that he was worthless and emotionally unavailable to
make the women more interested in him. In response, the
women too played parts.

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The narrator claims that though he didn’t love the women with Through describing his own affairs, the narrator again suggests that
whom he had affairs, he would periodically restart old affairs to people want to dominate others out of egotism. In this specific
assert power over his romantic partners, occasionally even instance, the narrator wanted to dominate his lovers, to assert
asking them to promise not to have sex with any other men. If power over them, in order to prove to himself how much they loved
they did promise, he felt fine leaving them again. He so him—that is, to flatter his own ego.
habitually behaved like this that eventually he even made
conquests of women he wasn’t interested in. He gives as an
example an affair he had with an unattractive woman. After he
learned she had criticized him to someone else, he made a point
of rekindling his romance with her. After he won her over, he
then humiliated and abandoned her.

In response to the listener’s silence, which the narrator When the narrator suggests that the listener may tell a “similar
interprets as disapproving, the narrator says that perhaps the story” later, he implies that despite the listener’s disapproving
listener will remember and recount a “similar story” from his silence, the listener has likely committed similar sins. Thus, the
own life later. At any rate, when the narrator remembered that narrator once again implies that his own egotism, hypocrisy, and
affair after forgetting it, he laughed—a laugh like the lust for power are not sins specific to him but are general human
mysterious laughter he heard on the quays, a laugh that failings. Meanwhile, the narrator’s claims that he only wanted “to be
implicated his law career as well as his romances, the former of loved” and for the whole world to live “at his bidding” again
which he saw as more hypocritical than the latter. Yet in these emphasize his egotism and his desire to dominate others, while his
romances, he never loved but only wanted “to be loved.” In fact, shame in recognizing these negative qualities hints that the same
in his ideal world, everyone would love him and live “at his egotism that motivates him makes him want to think well of himself
bidding.” In recounting this ideal to the listener, the narrator morally—something his self-knowledge now prevents.
admits that he feels an odd emotion—perhaps shame.

The narrator says that he has been feeling this emotion ever The narrator has been feeling ashamed, the opposite of power and
since one incident he remembered. Several years before the egotism, ever since he failed to save the woman in black from her
mysterious laughter, he passed a woman in black on the Pont suicide attempt, an attempt that her cries after her “body st[ruck]
Royal at night. He had already crossed the bridge when he the water” implies she quickly regretted. “The fall” in the novel’s title
heard “a body striking the water.” Though he froze, he didn’t thus refers to the woman’s fall into the water. It also refers to the
turn. Someone called out, their calls traveling down the river. narrator’s slow fall from innocence after realizing his own lack of
Then there was silence. The narrator, shaking, ordered himself power, decisiveness, or morality in a life-or-death situation. Finally,
to act speedily yet didn’t. Afterward, he left, telling no one. The it refers to “the fall of man,” the conventional Judeo-Christian term
narrator and his listener reach the narrator’s house, and the for humanity’s fall from grace upon gaining knowledge of good and
narrator promises to meet the listener for a boat trip across the evil and being expelled from the Garden of Eden. The layered
Zuider Zee to Markan Island the next day. When the listener allusions in the novel’s title suggest the importance of Judeo-
asks what happened to the woman, the narrator can’t say: he Christian stories to interpreting the novel despite the narrator’s lack
avoided the papers in the days following the incident. of conventional religious belief.

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PAGES 72-96
The narrator praises the “quaintness” of the village on Markan When the narrator claims he has no “friends,” only “accomplices,” he
Island but tells the listener that he plans to reveal more than implicitly casts himself as a criminal whose crime everyone is
mere quaintness. After praising the gray, featureless landscape, implicated in. With this metaphor, the narrator continues his habit
he says that the clouds the listener notices in the sky are of condemning himself while implying that everything he condemns
actually flocks of doves. Then he asks whether the listener himself for is also true of all other human beings—who, by extension,
understands him and says he no longer has the clarity of ought to be condemning themselves as well.
speech his friends used to admire. Immediately thereafter, he
corrects himself for saying “friends,” claiming he only has
“accomplices”—but his accomplices consist of all humankind,
especially the listener.

The narrator claims that he knows he has no friends because The narrator’s desire to “punish” his friends hints at his judgmental
when he considered dying by suicide to “punish” them, he and vindictive attitude toward others, an attitude that may make
realized “no one would feel punished.” Besides, it’s pointless to readers question his apparently friendly relationship with the
die by suicide, because one can’t witness others’ shock and guilt listener. Meanwhile, the narrator dismisses suicide for entirely
at one’s death—and most people one leaves behind don’t egotistical reasons: one can’t enjoy other people’s pain at one’s
actually suffer long from one’s death anyway. Additionally, death and one will be misunderstood as “idiotic or vulgar”
people will attribute “idiotic or vulgar motives” to the dead afterward. Thus, the narrator once again displays simultaneous self-
person. And finally, the narrator admits that he’s too egotistical hatred and general misanthropy even as he buddies up to the
for suicide. listener.

As an example of his egotism, the narrator admits that even The narrator’s story suggests that while people are egotistical, they
after he remembered his own faults, he tried to forget them also ultimately realize that they have faults—that they are guilty of
while continuing to judge others harshly. The purpose of this something and thus liable to judgment. The combination of their
double-step was “to elude judgment,” a hugely difficult egotism and this ego-bruising revelation of guilt makes them
proposition given how judgmental absolutely everyone is. He desperate “to elude judgment” from others—which leads people to
compares his former self to an “animal tamer” who walks into hypocritically judge others while trying to forget, ignore, or hide
work with a bloody cut, knowing that the animals will attack their own faults.
him. He began to suspect that his friends, who used to seem so
deferential, were judging him and laughing at him. In his
hypersensitive state, he realized that he had “enemies” who
hated him for having failed to share his previous luck with
them; once he realized people hated him, he felt that the entire
world was laughing at him.

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The narrator argues that people judge others to avoid being Here the narrator implies that people want to see themselves as
judged. All people see themselves as “innocent.” Men love to “innocent,” even though innocence and natural virtue don’t derive
hear that they are naturally virtuous. They don’t like others to from one’s own efforts and so aren’t really praiseworthy. People
praise them for their hard work at becoming virtuous, even want to believe themselves innocent, the narrator suggests, because
though being naturally virtuous isn’t praiseworthy. Criminals, they are intensely afraid of being held responsible for their own
meanwhile, love to hear that their crimes resulted from their actions. They desire domination—including the social domination
circumstances rather than their characters, even though they that comes from wealth—so that they can “isolate[]” themselves
are no more responsible for their characters than their from the judgment of others, which they fear more than anything.
circumstances. Everyone just wants “irresponsibility” and That is to say, people would rather be innocent than hardworking,
innocence, that’s all. That’s one reason people want to be admirable, or genuinely good—and indeed, they are willing to hoard
rich—they can use their wealth to “isolate[]” themselves socially wealth and oppress others to illicitly avoid just judgment.
and so temporarily avoid others’ judgment.

The narrator warns the listener not to believe anyone who asks Once again, the narrator uses his self-condemnation as a
him to be honest with them—they don’t want honesty but only springboard to judge everyone, trying to convince the listener that
to believe more deeply in flattering lies. People’s desire to avoid people really want dishonesty, flattery, and comfort even when they
judgment means they rarely reveal themselves to their ask for honesty. Meanwhile, his repeated allusions to Dante Alighieri
superiors in character. Instead, they reveal themselves to (c. 1265–c. 1321) and Dante’s Divine Comedy (c. 1321), an epic
others like them, expecting sympathy and reassurance rather poem about the Christian afterlife, emphasize the centrality of
than any encouragement to improve their characters. The Judeo-Christian stories to his worldview despite his lack of religious
narrator asks whether the listener knows Dante. When the belief. In Catholicism specifically, “Limbo” refers to an area in the
listener says he does, the narrator mentions that Dante placed afterlife for those who died in a state of original sin but who don’t
the angels who failed to take sides between God and Satan in deserve to go to Hell proper. When the narrator says that people
Limbo and claims that that’s where people find themselves—in generally find themselves in Limbo, he suggests that people are
Limbo. inherently sinful but often fail to make any choices really good or
bad enough to distinguish themselves.

In response to something the listener says about “patience,” the In Christian theology, the Last Judgment refers to God’s final
narrator agrees that patience is required to await the Last judgment on human souls at the end of the world. When the
Judgment—but everyone is impatient, including him, which is narrator says that people are too impatient to wait for the Last
why he became a “judge-penitent.” Yet before he could do so, he Judgment, he is implying that rather than wait for God to judge
had to go on a journey of self-discovery, confront the laughter, everyone, people jump to judge one another. That is, the narrator is
and realize his own internal complexity. He discovered that he yet again inferring from his own judgmental nature that all
was leveraging all his apparently good qualities to self- humanity is judgmental. In the same breath, he insists on the
interested, egotistical ends. For example, he used to keep egotism of all his apparently virtuous or charitable actions—and, as
humbly quiet about his birthday so he could wallow when usual, he seems to imply that this egotism is characteristic of
people forgot it. everyone.

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The narrator’s only excuse for his horrible behavior is that he Novelist Albert Camus is often associated with the philosophy of
isn’t truly capable of taking “human affairs” seriously. He claims “absurdism,” which argues that life is senseless and ridiculous. While
to have a far better intuitive understanding of a self-controlled Camus’s works often suggest that the objective senselessness of
friend who quit smoking cold turkey but took it up again after reality requires individuals to choose subjective meanings and
reading about the hydrogen bomb than about someone who values for themselves, the narrator instead “play[s] at” seriousness
would sacrifice everything for their or their family’s wealth and hypocritically while recognizing his own falseness. His claim that he
status. The narrator himself only ever “played at” being serious only ever “feels innocent” or “sincere” in the context of games implies
and was only ever “sincere” when engaged in games. He claims that games impose a bounded, self-consciously limited set of rules
to only ever “feel innocent” in stadiums or theaters. and values on reality and action, rules and values that the narrator
is unable to export to life generally.

The narrator hypothesizes that his inability to believe in any The narrator, continuing to speculate about his desire to escape
truly serious events motivated him to try to reject and escape “judgment,” censure, and guilt, here attributes that desire to his
“judgment” from both others and himself. Though his life looked inability to take life seriously. This speculation suggests that the
externally admirable and people spoke well of him, he began to narrator doesn’t want to be judged because he doesn’t think anyone
obsess over his own death. He started wondering whether he’d has the right to judge him—yet, in his egotism, he still wants people
be able to complete a nebulous “task” he felt he had and fearing to have positive opinions of him. Meanwhile, his allusion to a
he’d die before he had admitted to someone—not God or a precious object hidden in his apartment hints that that said object
priest, but someone—all his lies, lest the truth die with him. As will be revealed later in the novel.
an aside, he claims to the listener that by contrast, he now loves
the idea of the truth dying with him—for example, the truth that
he’s hiding in his apartment something that multiple countries’
police are looking for.

The narrator tells the listener that while he tried to tell himself In Christian theology, “salvation” refers to the state of being forgiven
that “Salvation” (i.e., annihilation) would come with death, he for one’s sins through the intercession (particularly the crucifixion)
eventually reached a psychological breaking point. First, he of Jesus Christ. For the narrator, by contrast, “Salvation” once
wanted to avoid judgment by exposing his treachery to all, meant annihilation—he thought he would be saved from sin, guilt,
thereby joining the “side” of the judges. He began criticizing and judgment only through his own permanent death without an
philanthropy, he claimed the “oppressed” were the real afterlife. The narrator’s transmutation of “Salvation’s” meaning
oppressors for making the well-to-do uncomfortable, and he shows how he uses Christian theological concepts almost
voiced nostalgia for Russian serfdom. He also wrote a poem metaphorically to understand his own existence without literally
praising the police and visited atheist cafes only to invoke the believing in Christian dogma. Additionally, his desire to join the
name of God. He tells the listener that while these actions may “side” of the judges may hint at how he became a “judge-
seem trivial, he was trying to destroy others’ good opinion of penitent”—he became a judge and loudly judges himself to preempt
him because he had lost his good opinion of himself. the judgments of others.

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The narrator recalls how, one day, having been invited to give a By arguing that “the honest man, the lawyer” is as guilty of “crimes”
lecture to early-career lawyers, he proposed a novel style of as the criminal, the narrator once again suggests that every single
defense that would exonerate criminals “by exposing the crimes person, honest and dishonest, is fundamentally guilty, deserving of
of the honest man, the lawyer,” who is internally flawed and judgment (in the social sphere) or prosecution (in the legal sphere).
guilty of great sins of omission if not commission. The alarmed “Debauchery” usually refers to hedonistic behavior such as sexual
early-career lawyers uneasily decided that the narrator must excess, while a “little-ease” is a Medieval torture device. The
be joking. The narrator concludes by saying that this and similar narrator’s claim that he has to explain these concepts before
outbursts didn’t help him, because self-condemnation isn’t explaining his profession of “judge-penitent” emphasizes how oddly
enough to achieve innocence. He didn’t hit upon the right circuitous his conversations with the listener have been.
method until later. Then he tells the listener he must explain
about “debauchery” and “the little-ease” before finally
revealing the meaning of “judge-penitent.”

PAGES 97-118
The narrator tells the listener that their boat is speeding The Zuider Zee was a bay in the North Sea that has since been
along—it only appears motionless because, on the foggy Zuider dammed into a freshwater lake, Lake Ijssel. As the narrator and the
Zee, there are no landmarks to indicate speed. After listener boat along the Zuider Zee, the narrator yet again reminds
mentioning that his experience sailing in Greece was very the listener that the narrator’s affairs with women were
different, the narrator suggests they sit down and proceeds to fundamentally egocentric: he pretended to love women or even
tell how, after his trying to smash his own reputation, he for a convinced himself he loved women only because he wanted them
while tried to forget himself in affairs with women. Wanting to love him. His casual claim that “the realm of truth” is a “colossal
love, he convinced himself that he loved. After his first love bore,” meanwhile, reminds readers that he already lied to the
affair failed sexually, he went looking for a storybook romance listener about his name and may be an unreliable narrator generally.
but—being too much in the habit of loving only
himself—couldn’t find it. He renounced sex, but without sex he
found women dull. He suspects this was “the realm of truth”—to
him “a colossal bore.”

The narrator explains that eventually, unable to benefit either The narrator’s claim that his “debauchery”—his descent into sexual
from love or from renouncing sex, he turned to sexual excess and alcohol abuse—was really an egotistical longing for
licentiousness and alcohol. He claims that this “debauchery” “immortality” is somewhat opaque. He may mean that physical
was really a suppressed egotistical longing for “immortality.” At excesses, by focusing him on the present moment, helped him forget
last, however, his body gave out from alcohol abuse, and he his future death. In this way, his excesses served as a substitute for
became totally exhausted. He claims that despite his bad conventional Christianity, which also promises “immortality” (of a
behavior, his reputation suffered less from said behavior that very different kind) to the believer. Interestingly, the narrator claims
from his occasional outbursts, such as his mentions of God in that his sexual excesses and alcohol abuse damaged his reputation
courtroom speeches, which scared off clients who thought that less than his occasional religious outbursts, a detail suggesting that
religiosity would prevent the narrator from defending them people fear religiosity because they think religious people are more
well. Regardless, his career puttered along, and in his likely to be judgmental.
exhaustion, he believed he was past his “crisis.”

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Yet, the narrator says, when he went on an ocean-liner trip to As a Frenchman, the narrator most likely has a Catholic cultural
celebrate his crisis’s end, he saw a “black speck” in the ocean understanding of Christianity. In Catholicism, baptism is a
and nearly screamed for help when he realized that it was just sacrament that removes original sin—inherent guilt with which
trash, not a person. At that moment, he discovered that he every person is born—from the baptized party. Peculiarly, then, the
would never stop hearing the cries from the Seine that he had narrator links the suicide of the woman in black—which made him
heard that night on the bridge. He predicts that he will hear conscious of his own guilt, egotism, and hypocrisy—with the
such cries on every body of water, which he calls “the bitter sacrament that frees a person from inherent sin. With this link, the
water of my baptism.” narrator indicates that he believes he didn’t become guilty when he
failed to help the woman in black; rather, he was always already
guilty—the woman in black simply showed him his guilt and, in so
doing, set him on the path to seeking forgiveness.

The narrator tells the listener that at this moment, he realized According to the narrator, knowledge of one’s own guilt is essentially
he could not avoid his fate: he would spend the rest of his life in an experience of torture—hence his comparison of this knowledge to
the “little-ease”—a Medieval torture device, a jail cell so small existence in the “little-ease.” By implication, this knowledge is so
that the prisoner could neither stand nor lie down at full length. painful due to human egotism: we want to think well of ourselves,
The narrator claims that the little-ease teaches a person his but our self-knowledge prevents us from doing so. We can neither
guilt. He also claims that no one put in a little-ease could be “stand up” (give up egotism) nor “lie down” (forget our flaws).
innocent. In addition, the narrator firmly believes in everyone’s Meanwhile, the narrator’s claim that people don’t need religion “to
guilt and no one’s innocence. Moreover, humanity doesn’t need create guilt or to punish” implies that in a secular world, the
religion “to create guilt or to punish”; the judgment of other judgment of public opinion takes the place of God’s judgment in
human beings is enough. people’s psyches.

The narrator argues that God’s real purpose would be to prove In Christianity, Jesus Christ’s atonement for all humankind’s sins
innocence, not guilt, which makes religion a “laundering through his crucifixion holds out the possibility of forgiveness to
venture.” Then, ambiguously, he claims that such a venture anyone who believes in him. The narrator may be referring to this
occurred “once but briefly, for exactly three years, and then it Christian theology when he claims that religion’s true purpose is to
wasn’t called religion.” Now no such laundering occurs. establish innocence, not guilt. His contemptuous claim that this
Everyone is unclean, everyone tries to judge someone else first, makes religion a “laundering venture” suggests that the narrator is
and everyone ends up in the little-ease. too invested in universal human guilt to be genuinely interested in
the possibility of religious forgiveness. Meanwhile, his reference to a
three-year laundering venture that “wasn’t called religion” is
ambiguous. He may be referring to the Holocaust; though the
Holocaust is usually dated from 1941 to 1945, most Holocaust
victims died 1942–1945, which would fit with the three-year
timeline. If he does mean the Holocaust, he is suggesting that Nazi
German anti-Semitism essentially consisted in declaring non-Jewish
people clean or innocent by demonizing Jewish people. In this view,
political violence against minority groups is a kind of scapegoating,
“proving” the innocence and goodness of the majority by projecting
all evil onto a minority group and then killing them.

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As their boat comes ashore, the narrator invites the listener to The narrator never says the name “Jesus Christ,” but readers can
accompany him home so he can finish talking. Then he asks the infer that the narrator’s “he” is Jesus Christ, not only because Christ
listener whether the listener knows why “he” was crucified. The is the most famous victim of crucifixion but also because the
narrator claims that “he” must have been guilty of Slaughter of the Innocents refers to a New Testament account of
something—for example, the Slaughter of the Innocents, where Jesus’ birth (Matthew 2:16-18), in which King Herod of Judea
other babies were killed in his place. The narrator claims that, ordered all male Jewish babies in and around Jesus’ birthplace killed
due to this “innocent crime,” the man in question couldn’t bear because he feared that baby Jesus might become a threat to his
living. Moreover, people have done this man’s memory a kingship. Though in Christian theology Jesus was born without
disservice by ascending his cross for self-promotion and using original sin, the narrator is arguing that because Jesus was in some
him as a pretext to judge others, even though he himself didn’t sense the “reason” that the Slaughter of the Innocents took place, he
judge the woman guilty of adultery, for example. is guilty of a “crime” despite his “innocence.” Thus, the narrator does
not exempt even Jesus Christ from his claim that all human beings
are inherently guilty. Meanwhile, the narrator’s claim that
Christians do Jesus Christ a disservice by using him as a pretext to
judge others shows the narrator’s distaste for organized religion
despite his evident respect for Christ himself.

The narrator claims that “he” wanted to be beloved, not to be a When the narrator says that “even among Christians” some people
judge—but that while some people do love him, “even among love Christ, he suggests that loving, non-judgmental people are
Christians,” they aren’t very numerous. Then he argues that actually less common among people who claim to follow
“he” was making a joke when he proclaimed that Peter, who Christ—showing his disdain for organized religion. Peter was one of
denied him, would be the founder of his church—but that the Jesus’ 12 apostles; he denied knowing Jesus after Jesus was
Christians don’t get the joke; they just continue to pretend arrested, shortly before the Crucifixion. In Matthew 16:18, Jesus
forgiveness while judging. Yet it’s not all the Christians’ fault. calls Peter the rock on which he will build his church. The narrator
Everyone judges, no one forgives, and so everyone is guilty—or claims that this must be a joke about the faithlessness of the church
would be, if the narrator himself had not solved the problem! to Jesus, given Peter’s betrayal of Jesus. In other words, the narrator
assumes that Jesus could not forgive Peter and make him an
important part of the church because of Peter’s sinfulness—an
attitude of the narrator’s betraying his own punitive, judgmental,
unforgiving attitude.

The narrator notes that he and the listener have reached his When the narrator describes himself as a godless prophet, he makes
home. While taking his leave, he claims that he is a godless clear that despite his evident knowledge about and interest in
prophet who warns the people all around him who judge Judeo-Christianity, he is not a believer, and his worldview is
“without a law.” The narrator’s role as a judge-penitent is to ultimately not based on Christian dogma. The narrator’s claim that
“announce the law.” Then he promises to tell the listener he warns people who judge “without a law” implies that in a secular
tomorrow what a judge-penitent is, noting that they are era, humanity has no common standards or values according to
running out of time as the listener leaves Amsterdam in two which the community can judge individuals—yet human beings
days. persist on judging each other anyway. The narrator, as judge-
penitent, then makes it his business to “announce the
law”—presumably, the communal standards by which people can
legitimately judge one another.

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PAGES 119-147
When the listener arrives at the narrator’s home, the narrator The narrator’s claim that he “was pope” at one point, though
explains that he’s in bed due to a fever, possibly caused by ridiculous, emphasizes the narrator’s claims to a kind of secular
malaria he contracted when he “was pope.” The narrator religious status as well as his nonbelieving interest in Catholic
acknowledges that the listener may struggle to determine Christianity. Presumably in response to the listener’s incredulity
whether the narrator’s stories are true or fabricated—but he after the “pope” comment, the narrator admits that he may be
argues that since all his stories hide “the same meaning,” their unreliable or even lying. Yet he argues that the literal truth or falsity
factuality doesn’t matter. Then he explains that he was elected of his stories doesn’t matter because, true or false, the stories
pope of “a prison camp.” Digressing, he mentions that his home contain “the same meaning.” Readers may judge for themselves
used to be full of books but now contains almost nothing. whether the narrator’s argument holds water—or whether his telling
the listener false stories without admitting they are false constitutes
deceitful and manipulative behavior.

Apparently at the listener’s urging, the narrator begins During World War II (1939–1945), Germany invaded France on
explaining how he came to be pope of a prison camp. During May 10, 1940 and took Paris on June 14, 1940. The Resistance
the war, the French army mobilized him late and asked him to refers to French guerilla groups that fought against the Nazi
take part in a retreat; shortly thereafter, he returned to occupiers of France and the Nazi-backed Vichy puppet government
German-occupied Paris. Intending to join the Resistance, he that ruled most of France from July 1940–August 1944. The
fled to the Southern Zone. Yet once there, he decided that the “Southern Zone” refers to the area of France unoccupied by the
Resistance’s “underground action” was a bad fit for him, as he Nazis. The narrator’s decision not to participate in the Resistance’s
loves “exposed heights.” Instead, he traveled on to Africa, “underground action” against the Nazis emphasizes yet again his
vaguely intending to flee to the UK. In Tunisia the Germans egotism and his love of domination: by implication he didn’t want to
arrested him, and he was imprisoned in a camp in Tripoli. fight without public recognition or the promise of victory (“exposed
heights”).

In the camp, the narrator met a religious Frenchman, whom he Francisco Franco (1892–1975) was a fascist general who
nicknamed “Du Guesclin.” Du Guesclin had traveled to Spain to overthrew the democratic government of Spain in the Spanish Civil
fight and, upon being interned by Franco’s fascists, was War (1936–1939) and subsequently ruled Spain as a dictator until
depressed that Spain was “blessed by Rome.” In the camp, his death. In 1948, Pope Pius XII sent a message of blessing to
inveighing against the pope, Du Guesclin decided that they Franco and the Spanish government, which is presumably what Du
needed to elect another pope who “live[d] among the Guesclin –who seems to have volunteered on the side of the anti-
wretched.” Franco, anti-fascist Republicans during the Spanish Civil
War—means when he says that Spain was “blessed by Rome.” The
genuinely religious Du Guesclin’s disgust with the official Catholic
pope emphasizes the split in the novel between a genuine interest in
and respect for religious narratives and a suspicion and contempt
for organized religion.

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When Du Guesclin asked who the worst among the prisoners Du Guesclin nominates the narrator as pope because the narrator
was, the narrator raised his hand, so Du Guesclin nominated claims he’s the worst person among the prisoners. The meaning of
him pope, and the other prisoners—half joking, half Du Guesclin’s nomination is ambiguous: Du Guesclin could be
impressed—agreed. As pope, the narrator ended up in charge mocking the Catholic pope by choosing the “worst” prisoner—or he
of water allotment for the other prisoners. He doesn’t like to could be suggesting that because the narrator is self-aware about
remember that time because he ended up drinking the water of his own sins and failings, he is actually the “best.” If the latter, this
another prisoner who then died, telling himself that he had to incident may actually have reinforced the narrator’s egotistical
survive because the prisoners needed him. He says that if Du tendency to think himself superior to others simply because he is
Guesclin hadn’t already died by that point, he wouldn’t have more aware of his flaws, which he believes everyone has.
taken the other prisoner’s water—but Du Guesclin was dead, Meanwhile, the narrator’s claim that he wouldn’t have taken the
and so the narrator took the water. dying prisoner’s water if Du Guesclin had been alive is similarly
ambiguous. He could mean that Du Guesclin inspired him to be a
better person by positive example—or simply that he was afraid of
Du Guesclin’s judgment. In either case, the narrator’s self-justifying
decision to take the water because, as pope, the prisoners “needed”
him is clearly another example of internally complex
hypocrisy—sinning under the aegis of doing good.

The narrator says that in telling this story, he’s had a revelation: The narrator’s claim that “one must forgive the pope” to make
“one must forgive the pope,” not only because the pope oneself superior to the pope implies that even forgiveness can
desperately needs forgiveness but also because one can become a tainted, egotistical action—something one does to
thereby make oneself superior to the pope. Then, after asking dominate another person. Van Eyck’s “The Just Judges” is a real
the listener to check that the door is closed, the narrator painting stolen from a cathedral altarpiece in Ghent, Belgium in
instructs him to open a cupboard and examine the painting 1934. By imagining that the stolen painting ended up in the
therein: a panel, titled “The Just Judges,” stolen in 1934 from a narrator’s possession, the novel makes him accessory to an actual
van Eyck altarpiece in Ghent. He explains that a patron of crime as well as merely existentially guilty.
Mexico City sold it to the bartender, who hung it up behind the
bar until the narrator told him its history, at which point the
bartender gave it to the narrator for safekeeping.

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When the listener asks why the narrator never returned the In sum, the narrator’s various rationalizations for becoming an
painting, the narrator retorts that the bartender has as much accessory to art theft suggest that in a secular world, society lacks
right to the painting as Ghent’s Archbishop; that since people premade standards and values by which individual actions can be
can’t tell the difference between the painting and the judged. Thus, in a sense, the stolen painting represents the
reproduction now in the altarpiece, the theft is a victimless individual’s freedom to choose his or her own values. Yet the
crime; that the painting allows him to “dominate” as the sole rationalizations the narrator gives show that individual values can
possessor of truth in a world of falsehood; that he likes be internally contradictory or nefarious. For example, the narrator
chancing incarceration; that the theft of a painting that claims that possessing the original painting allows him to
represents judges on their way to meet an innocent lamb is “dominate” other people, who only have access to the reproduction.
“justice” because “there is no lamb or innocence”; and that as This illustrates how the narrator nefariously values subordinating
innocence has been crucified and justice hidden in a cupboard, others. Similarly, the narrator’s claims are internally contradictory:
the narrator himself can operate freely as a judge-penitent. he says both that it’s “justice” to steal the painting because it
represents unreal ideals of the “lamb “ (Jesus Christ) and
“innocence”—yet in the very next breath he suggests that he needs to
hide justice in the cupboard in order to have his own way. That is, he
equivocates on whether the theft embodies justice or allows him to
avoid justice. In this way, the painting symbolizes not only the
necessity for choosing one’s own individual values in a secular world
but also the possibility of choosing badly, adopting hypocritical or
irrational values.

The narrator announces that he finally will explain what a By asking the listener to lock the religious painting that represents
judge-penitent is. First, he asks the listener to lock the painting justice back in the cupboard, the narrator symbolically suggests his
of the judges back in the cupboard. Then he explains that for rejection of religious dogma and of objective justice claims. In other
the past five days, as he has been talking to the listener, he has words, he symbolically makes himself— the individual—the sole, free
been acting as judge-penitent. He has been using their judge of his own behavior. Yet immediately afterward, he admits
conversations to “avoid[] judgment personally […] by extending that as judge-penitent, he has not been freely and individually
the condemnation to all.” As a rule, he rejects all possibility of judging himself but trying to “avoid judgment personally[],” showing
innocence or forgiveness, adding up people’s sins and then his cowardice, “by extending the condemnation to all.” In other
sentencing them. words, the narrator has all along been attempting to manipulate the
listener into accepting his general judgment of humanity in order to
avoid judgment in his own individual case.

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The narrator claims that, by sentencing everyone, he is an When the narrator says that freedom leaves the individual “alone”
“advocate of slavery.” Freedom itself always leaves a person and facing “a court sentence,” he suggests that every individual is
“alone” and facing “a court sentence.” Ergo, the narrator argues, responsible for his or her own behavior precisely because every
every person to avoid freedom must bow to a higher individual is free. This individual responsibility leaves people “alone”
power—and that higher power must be an enslaver since God and exposes them to both social and legal judgment (“a court
is “out of style.” Digressing, the narrator claims that many sentence”). So that people can avoid this terrifying freedom, which
supposedly atheist humanists believe in both Christian values exposes them to judgment, the narrator has become “an advocate of
and God but refuse to say so out of egotism and self-hatred, slavery”: that is, he believes that people should abdicate their
because such a public statement might cause embarrassment. freedom and thus their responsibility for their own actions by
accepting a master. When he says that people must accept a human
master because God is “out of style,” meanwhile, he implies that
organized religion itself is simply a means by which people give up
their individual freedom, abdicate responsibility for their actions,
and avoid social judgment.

The narrator argues that everyone, whether atheist or Here the narrator essentially summarizes all his negative judgments
religious, is a “hypocrite.” Scared of their own freedom and on humanity, of which he has been trying to convince the listener
believing “only in sin, never in grace,” they want laws and throughout their acquaintance: all people are “hypocrite[s]”; though
punishments and powers dominating them so that they can some profess religious belief, they don’t believe in God’s “grace” or
avoid freedom and judgment. They want someone else telling forgiveness but “only in sin” and guilt; and they want to be
them what’s right and wrong so they don’t have to freely dominated to shirk responsibility for their own individual freedom.
choose for themselves. Admitting that the incident on the Paris When the narrator claims that the incident with the woman on the
bridge showed him his own fear of freedom, the narrator bridge proved his own fear of freedom, it implies that he froze up
argues that what everyone needs is a “democracy” of total because he realized he could freely choose to help or not help
enslavement and total guilt. her—and didn’t want the responsibility.

The narrator says that since total enslavement isn’t practical When the narrator says that he has become a “penitent” to become
yet, he has come up with an interim plan to avoid the laughter a “judge,” he is revealing explicitly that he condemns himself in such
and judgment of others: he became a complete “penitent” to stark terms only so that he can pass judgment on other
earn the right of becoming “a judge.” He lurks at the Mexico City people—who have the same flaws but are less self-aware. Thus,
to find targets, especially wayward middle-class men. His throughout his conversations with the listener, he has been
practice involves, first, a sophisticated self-condemnation attempting to “mirror” the listener to try to make the listener
where his self-description becomes a “mirror” for the target. condemn himself—so that the narrator can dominate and feel
This allows the narrator to transition from condemning himself superior to the listener.
to condemning a “we” that includes the target. However, the
narrator sets himself up as better than the target due to his
greater self-knowledge—and goads the target into self-
condemnation, which makes the narrator feel better.

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The listener laughs when the narrator admits he’s looking In Catholic Christianity, “confession”—officially the Sacrament of
forward to the listener’s “confession.” In response, the narrator Penance—involves telling one’s sins to a priest and being forgiven. In
tells him that though intelligent targets need longer to break law and secular morality, a “confession” is a statement of
down, they contemplate what the narrator has said—and wrongdoing. When the narrator says that he is looking forward to
eventually confess. The narrator predicts that the listener will the listener’s confession, he assumes that the listener is guilty (of
either send him a letter later or return in person—and the something) and that he, the narrator, has the authority to judge that
narrator will be waiting, as he having discovered a lifestyle that confession in a near-religious or near-legal capacity. The listener’s
brings him joy, has no reason to move or change. disbelieving laughter suggests that he finds the narrator’s pretension
to authority absurd—but the narrator is undaunted.

The narrator explains his joy: it isn’t in avoiding judgment after Here the narrator reveals that he has substituted self-awareness for
all but in “permit[ting] oneself everything"—permission that any attempt at self-improvement: he hypocritically engages in
comes from loudly judging oneself. Now, he’s still totally “charming repentance” to prove his awareness of his sins without
egotistical and manipulative, but he can derive pleasure both any intention of changing his behavior, a tactic that allows him to
from his egotism and from his “charming repentance.” This “dominate” others and “judge everybody” by claiming that everyone
maneuver allows him to “dominate” and to “judge everybody.” is equally bad—but only he is adequately self-aware. Thus, his self-
Though he occasionally still hears laughter, he uses his method knowledge once again allows him to claim superiority over others,
of self-flagellation and domination of others to quiet it again. the superiority that his egotism desires.

The narrator invites the listener to come to the Mexico City that Yet again, the narrator admits that his work as a judge-penitent
evening and watch the narrator work. Each time he convinces a derives from his egotistical desire to dominate others and that his
patron to condemn himself, he feels dominant, like God. The egotism leads him to feign godhood despite his own nonbelief. His
narrator, frenzied with triumph, gets out of bed and paces claim that “the fall occurs at dawn” is an allusion to the Fall of Man,
around. He explains that when he feels this way, he paces by the loss of innocence and experience of guilt that occurs at
Amsterdam’s canals in the mornings—“for the fall occurs at humanity’s very beginnings, its “dawn,” in the Judeo-Christian
dawn”—and feels “happy unto death.” tradition. His odd claim that he feels “happy unto death,”
meanwhile, implies that there is something morbid and deathly
about the supposed happiness he derives from dominating and
judging others.

The narrator returns to his bed, asking the listener to “forgive” In the immediate context of the scene, it seems that the narrator is
him. He admits that he became overemotional and that while asking the listener to “forgive” him for becoming overemotional. Yet
his interim plan may not be the best, there’s nothing else to do: given the narrator’s attempts throughout the novel to manipulate
“we have lost track of the light, the mornings, the holy and dominate the listener, it is possible that this request for
innocence of those who forgive themselves.” Suddenly, the forgiveness betrays the narrator’s repressed understanding that he
narrator points out that it’s snowing and insists he must go out. has wronged the listener. Moreover, when the narrator claims that
When the listener remonstrates, the narrator asks whether the human beings have “lost […] the holy innocence of those who forgive
listener will confess now. Furthermore, the narrator admits themselves,” it implies that he knows he could escape from the
that he’s waiting for a target who turns out to be a policeman Catch-22 of egotistical desire for self-regard and loathsome self-
who’ll arrest him as an accessory to the theft of the painting. knowledge by simply and freely forgiving himself—but he is unable
Then maybe he could be beheaded and “dominate” as “an to do so. Instead, he continues to fantasize about how he might
exemplar.” “dominate” people even in death.

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When the listener admits that he is not a policeman but a Here, the narrator attributes to the listener the sin that caused his
lawyer, the narrator cries out that that explains his fondness for own “fall” from innocence: his failure to save the woman in black.
the listener. He insists that he and the listener are similar and This attribution completes his attempt to become a “mirror” for the
asks the listener to confess what happened to him “on the listener, thereby condemning the listener of the egotism and
quays of the Seine.” He exhorts the listener to cry out to the hypocrisy of which the narrator accuses himself. It is possible to
woman in black to attempt suicide again so that the listener will read this reversal, in which the narrator’s sins become the listener’s,
have an opportunity to save them “both.” Then the narrator as an attempt by the novel to implicate all readers (who narratively
says that luckily this plea is only figurative, as “it’s too late now.” occupy a similar position to the listener, hearing the narrator’s side
of the conversation) in universal guilt. Finally, when the narrator
says that luckily “it’s too late now” to save the woman in black, he
implies that despite the existential crisis that failing to save the
woman in black caused, he would freeze in cowardice in the exact
same way if confronted by her suicide again.

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To cite any of the quotes from The Fall covered in the Quotes
HOW T
TO
O CITE section of this LitChart:
To cite this LitChart: MLA
MLA Camus, Albert. The Fall. Vintage. 1991.
Prendergast, Finola. "The Fall." LitCharts. LitCharts LLC, 19 Nov CHICA
CHICAGO
GO MANU
MANUAL
AL
2024. Web. 19 Nov 2024.
Camus, Albert. The Fall. New York: Vintage. 1991.
CHICA
CHICAGO
GO MANU
MANUAL
AL
Prendergast, Finola. "The Fall." LitCharts LLC, November 19, 2024.
Retrieved November 19, 2024. [Link]
fall.

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