The Fall by Albert Camus is an interestingly written sorry about a man named Jean Baptise who was a high rolling defense lawyer until one day he uncovered repressed memories. He realized that he had passed a woman on a bridge and heard her fall, but had not turned around or saved her from drowning. On realizing this he recognizes how he has been conniving himself along with everyone else and that he is a hypocrite. He flees to Amsterdam and starts practicing the profession of a "judge penitent", where he confesses his own sins so that he has the right to judge you.
The last word in the book is "Fortunately!" and I feel like this further proves the narrators hypocrisy that despite his efforts did not go away. The narrator seems almost glad that he was not given a second chance, because he knows given the opportunity he would fail to act again,
We see underlying themes of Guilt and Power in the Fall. Like our other readings so far, in the fall we see how power is deemed necessary to unveil the truth, and how it is assumed that only authority can get the actual truth to light. We also see how everyone is presumed guilty, in fact the narrator even goes so far as to say that all men are murderers even if it be so by accident or negligence.
Indeed Jean Baptiste consoles himself with the fact that everyone in the world is guilty. He even says that Christ himself is guilty. By assuming that everyone including the all-powerful God is guilty, Jean Baptiste puts himself and everyone else on the same, level playing field of guilt. Only then is he able to judge others and feel good about himself. At one point in the novel Jean Baptiste says, "I wanted to put the laughers on my side, or at least to put myself on their side" (91). Jean doesn't want to be laughed at or judged by people, but in order to stop this judgement he must become one of them. This passage is a nod to the "if you can't beat them, join them" mentality. Jean Baptiste is overwhelmed with the desire to "puncture the tires of invalids' vehicles, to go and shout 'lousy proletarian'... to slap infants in the subway" (91). He desires to do these things in order to destroy his good reputation, but him on the same level as other people, and to evade judgement. Because everyone is guilty in his mind, whatever he does should remind others of their own transgressions. Once he establishes that everyone is horrible, he gets the right to judge.
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