Ironic Self in Camus’ The Fall

Abstract

Camus's self-irony in The Fall checks and reverses the vertiginous process of fall; it does so by confronting in lucid honesty the sources of moral anxiety from which Clamence flees, and by circumscribing the perilous fascination of the mirror of guilt and judgement to which Clamence voluptuously succumbs. Clamence’s reaction to his discovery of self takes many forms. He tries to destroy his image of perfection before others. Love, chastity and debauchery are the manners of escape to form his new image but he becomes unsuccessful. By portraying an anguished, self-doubting central character who accuses himself of a moral fraud, Camus makes the realization of human existence an ironic one.