![]() ![]() Going home, Clamence smiles at himself in his bathroom mirror, but it seems now that his smile is double. The laugh is “good, hearty, almost friendly” but it shakes him. The laughter sounds again, moving downstream. Clamence turns, but there is no one there, nor any boat or barge on the river. As he pauses on a bridge over the river Seine, feeling powerful after a successful day, a laugh suddenly bursts out behind him. One autumn evening, a strange event changes Clamence’s life. Clamence confesses, “I needed to feel above.” He would judge the judges and force the defendants to express gratitude, looking on himself “as something of a superman.” At the same time, his pleasurable life and self-love left him unsatiated and unsatisfied. In Paris, Clamence would take the cases of widows and orphans and “noble murderers,” enjoying the “satisfaction of being right.” He exulted in helping blind people cross the street and giving alms. Casually mentioning that he did not tell the stranger his real name, he goes on to describe his enviable history in Paris as a respected lawyer. Clamence calls himself a “judge-penitent,” which he promises to elaborate on later. The stranger is similar to Clamence: male, in his forties, cultured, and bourgeoisie. Clamence, a regular, assists a stranger in ordering a drink and joins him for conversation. The novel opens in the red-light district of Amsterdam in a bar called Mexico City. In this philosophical context, Camus explores themes of guilt, innocence, and judgment in The Fall. Camus offers that the only viable response to this tragic quandary is to continue living in the face of the absurd, embracing individual responsibility. Absurdism posits that humanity’s efforts to find meaning in existence are futile because no such meaning exists, or if it does, humans can’t figure it out. Camus’s philosophical views contributed to the rise of absurdism this school of thought informs The Fall. Clamence addresses his confession, in the form of a series of dramatic monologues, to this character, “you,” who listens, without speaking, for the entire novel. In the book, a sophisticated, glib, former Parisian lawyer Jean-Baptiste Clamence confides the story of his life to a stranger he meets in a seedy bar. May Welland is exactly what she has been trained to be: the perfect helpmate of civilized society in wealthy 1870s New York.Albert Camus, a French-Algerian novelist, journalist, and playwright, wrote his philosophical novel, The Fall ( La Chute) in 1956. Like other women, she keeps Newland on the straight and narrow, pronouncing any deviation from the norm to be "vulgar" and unthinkable. She cannot fulfill Newland's desires for an emotional life or intellectual stimulation, but with true Wharton irony she does symbolize the perfect wife and marriage partner for his social class and time. She knows her husband, and even her deathbed confession to Dallas demonstrates her knowledge of Newland's unhappiness but her total understanding of duty and their shared values. Her suggestion that they give a "last dinner" for Ellen shows how she has grown in wisdom and the determination to hold on to what she has. In a society where women have little power, they use what they can. She is firm about her position as his wife, and she uses the ruse of pregnancy to finally vanquish Ellen forever. Her telegram in Chapter 18 anticipates his temptation and closes the door on it. She sends Newland a letter from Florida reminding him of her kindness just as he is ready to fall for Ellen's charms. Her strategic actions throughout the novel show that she has learned well at her mother's side. Newland is kept on a short leash and it is a wonder that he is able to get away to meet Ellen. Always worrying about what her mother will think, May manages Newland's life she arranges every minute of his schedule at Newport, becoming the image of her mother after two years of marriage. In Florida, her mother voices narrow and snobbish attitudes that later parallel May's own comments about people she meets on her honeymoon. He sees too late that she outmaneuvers him at every turn and that she knows of his unhappiness. Wharton exercises considerable talent in showing May through the eyes of Newland Archer, whose vision of her is frozen in time like her photograph on his desk. She marries Newland and her slim intellectual abilities never vary, but her wisdom in manipulating Newland grows immensely. When she first appears, she is the personification of innocence. A perfect product of the social code, May Welland Archer begins the novel in ignorance and ends it in wisdom. ![]()
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