The Immoralist

“I was very tired, I simply gave up, ‘After all, what is there to live for? I have worked hard to the end, done my duty with passion and dedication. Apart from that…oh, what else is there?’ I thought, admiring my own stoicism.”

Michel’s reaction to contracting tuberculosis reveals his conformity to society’s expectations before he experiences a philosophical transformation. At the beginning of the novel, he believes in society’s definition of success and sees little point to his life aside from work. His fatalistic attitude after falling ill reflects his unhappiness and dissatisfaction with his current life.

“The boy is disconcerted by his frosty welcome and turns to Marceline; like a graceful animal he nudges her cajolingly, takes her hand and embraces her, revealing his bare arms in the process. I notice he is completely naked between his thin white gandourah and patchwork burnous.”

Gide uses a simile to compare Bachir to an animal, depicting the boy as a fond pet. He also shows how Michel objectifies the boy, fixating on his appearance and his body, which Michel finds attractive. Bachir’s objectification reveals both that Michel exoticizes him due to his Arab ethnicity, and that Michel is attracted to the boy’s body due to his youth and health.

“I couldn’t sleep that night, so stimulated by the thought of my new-found virtues. I think I had a touch of fever. I had a bottle of mineral water by the bed. I drank a glass, then another; on the third occasion, I drank straight from the bottle, emptying it in one go. I honed my hostility, directed it at all and sundry. I had to fight against everything: my salvation depended on myself.”

By showing Michel drinking excessive amounts of water in an attempt to cure himself, Gide depicts Michel as prone to extreme habits, even when those habits are healthy. He also portrays Michel as a devout believer in self-reliance, since Michel is convinced that only he, as an individual, has the power to heal himself.

“Until that day, it seemed to me, I had felt so little and thought so much, and I was astonished to find that my sensations were becoming as strong as my thoughts. I say ‘it seemed to me,’ for from the depths of my early childhood the glimmer of a myriad of lost sensations was re-emerging. Yes, as my senses awoke, they rediscovered a whole history, reconstructed a whole past life.”

Gide uses an extended metaphor to describe Michel’s sensual awakening, comparing his newfound awareness of his sensations to lost memories. This reinforces Michel’s theory that society and culture are obstacles that prevent him from being in touch with his more authentic self, one that he can access through his senses.

“I saw him silently approach a table, pick up a pair of scissors that Marceline left lying next to her sewing and slide them quickly inside his burnous. I could feel my heart pounding for a moment, but for the life of me I couldn’t summon up a squeak of protest. In fact, I would have to say that the feeling that swept over me was nothing other than joy!”

Michel experiences physical pleasure from observing Moktir’s theft of the scissors, indicating that his interest in children derives from his desire to live vicariously through their experiences. His seemingly unusual reaction of responding to a child misbehaving not with disapproval but with delight reveals that he values Moktir’s audacity to transgress society’s rules more than the morality of the child’s actions, hinting at his own upcoming transformation into an iconoclast.

“This quietness frightened me, and once again all my negative feelings about my life came back to me, protesting, asserting their presence, bewailing their existence in the silence. They were so violent, so painful almost, so insistent that, if I could, I would have howled like an animal.”

The absence of sensory stimulation—silence—causes Michel to reflect on his own mortality. Gide personifies Michel’s feelings of despair, depicting them as actively hurting him. This portrayal of depression suggests that Michel seeks out sensory stimulation and pleasure in the present moment to take his mind off his existential dread.

“I went down to the water, and without a moment’s thought dived straight in. I soon felt cold, so I climbed and lay down on the grass in the sun. There was some wild mint growing there. I picked some, crushed the sweet-smelling leaves between my fingers and rubbed them over my damp but burning body. I gazed at myself, no longer with shame, but with joy. I felt, if not exactly strong, then at least potentially so, harmonious, sensuous, almost beautiful.”

Michel’s interactions with nature transform his physical body and his self-image. Gide blurs the lines between pain and pleasure as Michel experiences both from his adventures in nature. His communion with nature causes him to grow physically strong, and his philosophical metamorphosis mirrors his physical transformation as he becomes a wilder version of himself, in touch with his senses.

“At first, perhaps, the necessity to lie required a certain effort, but I soon came to realize that the things which are supposed to be the worst (like lying, to name but that) aren’t really difficult at all, except when one has never done them before; in no time at all they become easy, enjoyable; one can do them again without compunction, and very soon they become second nature. Thus, as with anything where one has to overcome an initial revulsion, I began to actually enjoy this dissimulation.”

Michel’s description of the process of learning to lie without guilt reveals how his view of morality changes from a rigid definition to one that is based on pragmatism. Stating that lying becomes “enjoyable” the more one tries it, he suggests that our ideas of morality are based more on our emotional reactions than on what is actually right or wrong. Gide later shows Michel suffering due to his immoral actions, however, which suggests that the author does not endorse Michel’s views.

“Ah, what tender looks, what kisses we exchanged after that. I hadn’t been in any great danger, but I had had to show my strength, and do so in order to protect her. I felt that I could have given my life for her—and given it gladly […]. That night, for the first time, I possessed Marceline.”

Michel’s attraction to his wife derives from him viewing her as an object he must protect. After Michel saves his wife from a reckless carriage driver, proving his masculinity and “showing his strength” he also displays his masculinity by “possessing” her sexually. Thus, Gide depicts Michel’s first sexual encounter with his wife as an act of dominance that affirms his newfound masculine identity.

“I felt that this land, where everything was coming to fruition, ready for harvest, was bound to exert a very good influence on me. […] From this ordered abundance, this joyful labor, this happy cultivation, a harmony emerged, not by chance but by design, a rhythm, a beauty that was both human and natural, where the bursting fecundity of nature and the skilful regulation of man were so bound together, so in tune with one another, that one no longer knew which one found the most admirable.”

Michel romanticizes the pastoral landscape of his farm, viewing it as the perfect balance between civilization and nature. Due to this balance, he believes that being on the farm will be “a very good influence” on him, reflecting the theory that one’s natural surroundings determine one’s temperament and behavior. The orderly, harmonious environment of the farm contrasts from the wild nature he encounters in Italy and North Africa, which Gide depicts as turning Michel into an impulsive pleasure-seeker.

“All of Charles’ movements, imbued with his youth and enthusiasm, imparted a fervent air of enjoyment to the proceedings. Suddenly, I don’t know how, he mounted the horse. […] The colt had bucked only slightly; now it was trotting round again, so beautiful, so supple I felt envious of Charles and told him so.”

Michel finds Charles attractive due to his youth and playfulness. Charles embraces the hard labor of the farm but does so by viewing it as a pleasurable task. Furthermore, he establishes his dominance over the creatures on the farm, including the horse he tames. Thus, Charles represents the masculine ideal of a strong man who finds pleasure in nature but also creates order from nature by dominating it.

“How our love had already learned to wrap itself in silence! Marceline’s love was deeper than words could say; sometimes this love was almost painful to me. Like the surface of a calm pond rippled by the wind, her face would show the slightest emotion. She could hear the stirrings of a new, mysterious life within her, and I gazed into her as into a deep, clear pool where there was nothing but love as far as the eye could see.”

Gide’s portrayal of Marceline as a pool reflecting love for Michel shows how Michel views Marceline as a mirror of his own feelings of guilt rather than as a fully realized human being. She is depicted as embodying the love of an idealized dutiful wife, which Michel finds “painful” because he feels that he cannot fulfill his duties to her as a husband. The image of Marceline as a pool where life is growing also implies that she is primarily a vessel for life, serving her role as the carrier of Michel’s child without having agency of her own.

“I hate resting. Possessions encourage this; when one feels secure, one falls asleep. I love life enough to prefer to live it awake. So within all this wealth I preserve a sense of precariousness with which I aggravate, or at least intensify, my life. I can’t claim that I love danger, but I do like life to be risky, I like it to make demands on my courage, my happiness, my health at every moment…”

Using a metaphor to compare falling asleep to not living fully in the present moment, Ménalque explains his view that stability and material possessions prevent people from living an authentic life. His preference for a riskier life is ironic: despite his professed desire for precarity, he lives in luxurious quarters and enjoys the privilege of a middle-class lifestyle.

“But most of them believe the only good comes from restraint; their pleasure is counterfeit. People don’t want to be like themselves. They all choose a model to imitate, or if they can’t choose a model themselves, they accept one ready-made. Yet I believe there are other things to read in a man. No one dares. No one dares turn the page. The law of imitation—I call it the law of fear. They fear finding themselves alone, so they don’t find themselves at all.”

Ménalque believes people who conform to society’s rules go against their natural inclinations. He compares man to a book that can be read, suggesting that most people choose to follow a formula for success because they fear failure if they try to be individuals. Ménalque’s belief that people give up their individuality to seek status influences Michel’s ideas, leading him to give up his conventional life to pursue the individuality that Ménalque believes comes from rejecting society’s constraints.

“You can stay with your wife and child…There are thousands of ways of life and each of us can only know one. It’s madness to envy other people’s happiness. Happiness doesn’t come off the peg, it has to be made to measure. I leave tomorrow. I know—I have tried to tailor this happiness to fit me…You hang on to the comfortable happiness of home life.”

Although Ménalque seems to be affirming Michel’s decision to choose whatever sort of happiness fits him best, his condescending tone implies that he would think less of Michel if he were content with his “comfortable happiness.” Ménalque’s view that happiness is unique to the individual reflects his belief in individuality. However, by stating that Michel’s life with his wife and child would be “comfortable,” Ménalque hints that this comfort would be a hollow substitute for authentic happiness, which he believes can be found only through the unbridled pursuit of pleasure.

“I preferred the company of the farm workers; I felt I had more to learn from them—not that I was quizzing them all the time—and I can’t really express the joy that their company gave me. It was if I could feel things through them—whereas I knew what our friends were going to say even before they opened their mouths, these poor people constantly filled me with wonder.”

Michel romanticizes the poor farmers on his estate, emulating what he views as their more authentic lifestyles. He lives vicariously through their experiences without sacrificing any of his privilege as the owner of the farm. By finding joy and pleasure in their lives, Michel reveals his ignorance of the difficulties they face and glorifies the experience of poverty.

“It was not too late in the year, but it was cold and damp and the last of the rosebuds were already wilting before they had opened. Our guests had long since gone. Marceline wasn’t so ill that she couldn’t organize the shutting-up of the house, and five days later, we left.”

The weather when Marceline becomes ill again reflects Michel’s feelings of hopelessness. The rosebuds in his garden that never bloomed symbolize his hopes for his marriage and the child he had hoped Marceline would bear for him. Now that Marceline has lost her pregnancy and is ill, he gives up on having a conventional life with her, selling his estate and going on a trip to help Marceline heal, paralleling and reversing their original honeymoon, during which he fell ill.

“And so I tried, once again, to take a firm hold of my love. But did I really need this peaceful happiness? The love that Marceline gave me, the love that she symbolized for me, was like rest for a man who isn’t tired. But as I sensed how exhausted she was, and how much she needed my love. I lavished it on her, pretending that it sprang from my own need. I couldn’t bear to see her suffering; I loved her in order to cure her.”

Michel depicts Marceline’s love as extraneous to his own needs since he does not need it as much as she does. While her love does not fulfill his own sexual and sensual desires, he still hopes to “cure” her by returning it. However, Gide reveals that Michel’s quest to use love as a “cure” ultimately fails because he does not reciprocate her love enough to attend to Marceline’s needs, neglecting her and ultimately contributing to her death.

“She has taken out her handkerchief, she is raising it to her lips, turning her head away...The horror! Is she also going to spit blood? I snatch the handkerchief roughly from her hands. I examine it in the half-light of the lantern…Nothing. But I have displayed too much anxiety. Marceline forces a sad smile and murmurs: ‘No, not yet.’”

This scene mirrors the scene earlier in the novel when Michel coughs up blood into a handkerchief and tries to keep Marceline from seeing it. By reversing the roles of the spouses, Gide shows how they have traded places, from Marceline as the caretaker to Michel. Marceline’s response to Michel, saying that she is not coughing blood yet, foreshadows her ultimate demise, implying that the worsening of her illness is inevitable.

“I began to appreciate other people only when they displayed their wild side; I hated when they suppressed this out of some sense of restraint. I more or less regarded honesty as a matter of restriction, convention, or fear.”

Michel imposes his own philosophy of individuality and amorality onto the people he meets, looking down on those who obey society’s conventions. Rather than seeing honesty as a virtue, he views it as a sign of weakness because he thinks that people are only honest when they are mindlessly conforming to society’s expectations.

“I often think of this tearful episode and I now believe she had sensed that she didn’t have long left and that she was crying tears of regret for other springs. I also believe there are strong joys for the strong and weak joys for the weak, and that the joys of the strong would be damaging to the weak. The merest drop of pleasure was enough to make her drunk. The slightest increase in intensity would have been too much for her. What she called pleasure, I called rest, and I didn’t want to rest, I was unable to rest.”

After Marceline bursts into tears when Michel brings her fresh cut flowers, he asserts that her reaction to the flowers results from her physical weakness. His delineation between the “strong” and the “weak” implies that only a certain type of person, specifically a strong, healthy man, can benefit from the pursuit of hedonism. His emphasis on physical strength reveals his belief in the superiority of masculinity over femininity, which he views as weak.

“Poverty makes slaves of men. In order to eat they will do work they hate. Any work that isn’t joyful is wrong, I thought, and I was paying them so they could rest. I told them, ‘Don’t work, you hate it.’ I wanted to give every one of them all that leisure without which nothing new can develop—no vice, no creativity.”

Michel critiques the economic system of capitalism, pointing out that it leaves working-class men with little time to enjoy the pursuit of pleasure. He views a lack of leisure as leading to stagnation because it does not allow people to develop new ideas. He subverts this system by giving away money to the poor people he encounters, but his small rebellion against the economic system is mostly symbolic since he continues to live a lavish bourgeois lifestyle.

“A land unencumbered with works of art. I despise those who can’t see beauty until it is transcribed and interpreted. What is so wonderful about the Arab people is that they live their art; they sing it and dissipate it on a day-to-day basis. They don’t preserve it, embalm it in works of art. This is both the cause and the effect of their lack of great artists.”

Michel engages in Orientalist tropes to essentialize Arab people, depicting them as living a more culturally rich life than Europeans and expressing fleeting emotions through music rather than creating permanent works of art. His use of the word “embalm” to describe lasting works of art suggests that he views intellectual culture as deadening since it prevents one from living in the present moment. Thus, he romanticizes and elevates Arab music because it mirrors his philosophy of pursuing momentary pleasure rather than seeking a legacy.