47 pages • 1 hour read
Albert CamusThe Fall
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1956A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 2 Summary
The next night at Mexico City, the cher ami wishes to know about Clamence’s job as a “judge-penitent.” Clamence explains that he was recently a well-respected lawyer in Paris who took on the “noble cases” of widows and orphans (18). Clamence had a robust physique and good health, and he was considered virtuous by his peers. He hated judges.
Clamence was deeply satisfied with being on the right side of the law. He believes all people crave lawfulness, being right, and high self-esteem. He recounts a story of a client who murdered his own wife because she was a good person and he was not. Clamence reasons that by killing her, his client felt like a better person since his highly virtuous wife was gone.
Clamence’s peers were highly jealous of his situation. Clamence enjoyed defending criminals and persuading the court of his clients’ nobility. Clamence never took bribes or bribed journalists. He was offered the Legion of Honor several times, the highest honor that can be awarded in France, and he turned it down every time.
Clamence was an empathetic person who enjoyed helping others. He recounts helping blind people cross streets, helping people carry heavy packages, and giving money to unhoused people. Clamence derived pleasure from giving money to others because it reinforced his position as a virtuous person. He considers this height of virtue, a metaphorical height from which to look down on others. He explains that he can only live in highly elevated places. Underground places and ship holds are insufferable to him. He needs to be at a height above others, literally and metaphorically, and he considers places that are low to be criminal. Living high up gave Clamence fame and an excellent reputation and made him impossible to judge. Clamence believes many murderers have killed to experience a metaphorical lofty position for a while; he believes being anonymous to the world drove them to kill. Clamence reveled in his courtroom performances that defended such murderers. He feels as if he lived in the Garden of Eden.
Clamence was in “harmony with life” (28). He explains that he comes from a humble background but always felt like he was born for greatness. He felt he was inherently virtuous and above others, which led to him being continually unsatisfied and always seeking more. No amount of prestige or good fortune satisfied him. He lived in this manner until a certain evening, which he doesn’t explain. Clamence downs an entire drink and tells his cher ami that he needs his new friend to understand him.
Clamence thinks friendship is cheap and friends are not sincere. He pivots to talking about the dead. Clamence declares that people are kinder to the dead than the living because the dead do not make demands. Clamence delights in the emotional whirlwind and the display of emotions that surrounds death, which he finds lacking in living friends. Clamence believes the death of others is a chance for self-love, which he sees as the basis for loving others. For Clamence, people do not love others innately but love them as extensions of self-love. Clamence went to many funerals for people he did not know or care about, just to be seen.
Clamence explains the evening he mentioned to his cher ami. He had had a good day and was walking home late at night. As he lit a cigarette, he heard a laugh without a source. This startled him badly, and he ran home and called a friend, who did not answer. Clamence heard more laughter outside his window, which startled him into panicking again. This is the story of the drowning woman that Clamence will tell later, her misremembered as a disembodied laugh. Clamence promptly leaves the bar for the night.
Chapter 2 Analysis
Chapter 2 introduces the themes of Innocence and Guilt through Clamence’s job as a “judge-penitent.” Clamence establishes his innocence as a respectable and kindhearted man who once used his privilege to help unfortunate people. From widows and orphans to blind people, Clamence spent much of his free time in Paris helping others. He defended murderers and thieves in court. Clamence felt like he lived in the Garden of Eden, a metaphor for his state of innocence and an allegory for the Fall of Man.
Clamence does not reveal his burden of guilt to his cher ami in this chapter. Consequently, when he first recounts “the evening” when the woman drowned herself, he misremembers it as hearing a disembodied laugh that mocked him. The cries of a dying person misremembered as mocking laughter symbolize Clamence’s guilt over the situation. Camus does not clarify if Clamence is lying or genuinely misremembering. If Clamence is lying, he is intentionally covering his guilt to lure his cher ami into the trap of feeling sympathetic for him. This would allow Clamence to more easily persuade him. Clamence may have genuine difficulty remembering, and the fever he develops in the next chapters suggests this is more likely. Memory difficulties would mean that Clamence’s “solution” does not work; he is still haunted by his guilt and grasping for easy solutions. This lapse in memory also means that Clamence feels emotions, contrary to his words. Misremembering a woman’s dying cries as laughter protects him from his guilt and allows him to reconcile the duplicity of modern society with his “solution.” Camus leaves this part of Clamence’s character intentionally vague to allow for different interpretations.
Clamence paradoxically claims that “pimps and thieves” need to sometimes escape justice so “decent people” don’t believe they themselves are “constantly innocent,” saying that if criminals never escaped justice, the world would be “a joke” (41). Clamence has not yet spoken about his spiral into debauchery, but this statement implies that the “Eden” he lived in was a sham since he believes “decent people” are not innocent. Clamence foreshadows his own downfall with this belief. He inverts typical views on innocence and guilt, believing that everybody is guilty and innocence is a short-lived state of being that can sometimes be obtained. Clamence’s “solution” to this state is unburdening his own guilt by making everybody just as guilty as him. Clamence’s beliefs mirror Nietzsche’s concept of “slave morality.” Like Nietzsche, Clamence compares Christianity and democracy to slavery; in Nietzsche’s writing, anyone who is in an oppressed “underclass” is a “slave” and prioritizes kindness and empathy over power. Unlike Nietzsche’s concept of “slave,” Clamence embodies the “master” role: vicious, hateful, and convinced of his own inherent goodness and morality. As a lawyer and successful upper-middle-class man in France, Clamence lived in a position of power and privilege, which Nietzsche claims is the basis for “master morality.” Clamence’s “fall” is a fall from this privileged position. Camus suggests that “slave morality” is a tool for oppressors like Clamence, that they can exploit kindness and other virtues for their own gain. Clamence, who wants to dominate others, ultimately preaches the value of enslaving others. His stance on innocence and guilt is the basis for these beliefs.
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