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Morality And Clamence In The Fall By Albert Camus

Decent Essays

In the novel The Fall by Albert Camus he writes about a lawyer named, Jean-Baptiste Clamence who was a respected lawyer and worked as one of the best in his field. Clamence had been living a good life in Paris, but then realizes he’s been living a hypocritical life an moves to Amsterdam. Clamence is an absurdist, who finds meaning in life through peoples judgements and only helps others if he’s in the publics eyes view. He also achieves his goal by being very selfish and manipulative on people so he can feel above others. Hence that Clamence lacks ethics/morals because he creates a fake morally image of himself so he can be liked and respected by society, claiming thats how you live a life. In Paris France, Clamence is a lawyer who …show more content…

Instead of worrying about his clients, he is worrying about himself and how others will see him, he greeds for satisfaction than a persons life. In some point in the novel instead of being a public defender he becomes a “judge", in meaning he judges people so he won’t be judged by others. Clamence lives a hypocritical life and needs attention from the public. There are situations in the novel were Clamence shows this kind of attitude. For example, he consider’s himself as a generous man with a kind heart because he helped others and even strangers. However, when he saw a young woman attempting suicide on the bridge, he did not help her because no one was there to witness a great rescue, “being alone, there were no societal expectations” (Robertson2011 pg.151). Clamence forgot about the incident and was defending himself with excuses so he didn’t feel guilty about his decision. Clamence felt he was innocent and that "innocence comes from being ignorant of one’s true, presumably selfish, motives” (Robertson2011 pg.151). His hypocrisy comes out and needs the publics eye to help others, “he finally realized that his selfish nature was driving everything he did” (Robertson2011 pg.151). Clamence tries to be moral but uses immoral tactics to be a good person. Despite of the first part of the novel of Clamence living a hypocritical, immoral, and unethical life, he does admit to his mistakes and feels guilt. Clamence life serves as a example,

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