The Bartender Character Analysis in The Fall

The bartender works at Mexico City, a bar in the red-light district of Amsterdam. As the bartender speaks only Dutch, the narrator—who seems to speak both Dutch and French—ends up ordering drinks for the listener, a French tourist, thus beginning the narrator’s and listener’s acquaintance. Later, the narrator tells the listener that he is holding Van Eyck’s “The Just Judges,” a painting stolen from Saint Bavo Cathedral in Ghent in 1934, for the bartender. The bartender bought it from a burglar who drank at his bar. Unaware of the painting’s illegal origins, he hung it over the bar, only to give it to the narrator in a panic once the narrator explained where it had come from. The narrator speaks of the bartender with contempt, but as readers only learn about the bartender through the unreliable narrator, it is difficult to know how to interpret the narrator’s judgment on him.

The Bartender Quotes in The Fall

The The Fall quotes below are all either spoken by The Bartender or refer to The Bartender. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:

Anyone who has considerably meditated on man, by profession or vocation, is led to feel nostalgia for the primates. They at least don’t have any ulterior motives.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), The Listener, The Bartender

Page Number and Citation: 4

Explanation and Analysis:

The Bartender Character Timeline in The Fall

The timeline below shows where the character The Bartender appears in The Fall. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

...he calls “monsieur,” offers to order a gin on behalf of the listener from the bartender, who speaks only Dutch. The narrator goes on to say that the bartender’s refusal to... (full context)

The bartender brings the narrator and listener gin. The narrator explains that the bartender only called him... (full context)

...“Jewish quarter” until the Holocaust. The narrator comments that the Holocaust helps him understand the bartender’s suspiciousness of others. He adds that the most trusting, loving man the narrator ever knew... (full context)

...was hedonistically “satisfied with nothing” until the fateful day he mentioned. The narrator calls the bartender for another drink and admits that he wants his listener to give him “understanding,” even... (full context)