Memory and Self Discovery: Trope of Journey in Camus’sThe First Man

Abstract

This research work tries to trace the memory and self discovery of the author in The First Man through the autobiographical aspect of the novel. Albert Camus presents the protagonist, a grown up man of forty named Jacques Cormery who is trying to find his childhood past in Algeria and to know the hidden reality about his dead father. The novel’s flashback narration brings the memory of the protagonist as the ultimate search for self or identity. Throughout this memory of past poor childhood in Algeria without father of the grown up protagonist, the author has revealed his own hidden childhood and family history as his identity. There are two factors associated with life of the protagonist Jacques Cormery or the author. On one hand, the novel presents the story of the growth of the protagonist from a poor family from Algeria without father with his hard struggle into the sober and successful man as the personal self or identity and the other hand, the novel presents the identity of French-Algerian at the collective level. This research has found the search for author’s self, identity and subjectivity through the autobiographical writing by turning back to his childhood and family history as the autobiographical novel.