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The Specter of Narration and Hypocrisy in Albert Camus’ The Fall

Jan Gresil Kahambing

Pertanika Journal of Tropical Agricultural Science, Volume 28, Issue 1, March 2020

Keywords: Camus, existentialism, hypocrisy, laughter, narration, The Fall

Published on: 19 March 2020

In this paper, I explored what Sartre referred to as Camus’ ‘most beautiful and least understood novel,’ The Fall. As a methodology, I applied textual hermeneutics to immerse in the text and got out of it what I deemed as the crux of its existentialism as founded in the two-in-one leitmotif of narration and hypocrisy. In Clamence, there was a profound need − a specter that lingered and haunted − to narrate his life, especially the fall that triggered it and the judgment that allowed him to do it. I argued then that the nature of the text reflected a deep sense of narration that stemmed from hypocrisy, in which Clamence branded himself as ‘judge-penitent’ − what such a life entails, how it freed him, and how it mirrored life-callings or vocations in all walks of life.

ISSN 1511-3701

e-ISSN 2231-8542

Article ID

JSSH-3088-2018

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