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Pages 97-118
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Fall, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Guilt and Judgment
Freedom vs. Domination
Egotism
Hypocrisy and Inauthenticity
Judeo-Christianity
Summary
Analysis
When the listener arrives at the narrator’s home, the narrator explains that he’s in bed due to a fever, possibly caused by malaria he contracted when he “was pope.” The narrator acknowledges that the listener may struggle to determine whether the narrator’s stories are true or fabricated—but he argues that since all his stories hide “the same meaning,” their factuality doesn’t matter. Then he explains that he was elected pope of “a prison camp.” Digressing, he mentions that his home used to be full of books but now contains almost nothing.
The narrator’s claim that he “was pope” at one point, though ridiculous, emphasizes the narrator’s claims to a kind of secular religious status as well as his nonbelieving interest in Catholic Christianity. Presumably in response to the listener’s incredulity after the “pope” comment, the narrator admits that he may be unreliable or even lying. Yet he argues that the literal truth or falsity of his stories doesn’t matter because, true or false, the stories contain “the same meaning.” Readers may judge for themselves whether the narrator’s argument holds water—or whether his telling the listener false stories without admitting they are false constitutes deceitful and manipulative behavior.
Themes
Apparently at the listener’s urging, the narrator begins explaining how he came to be pope of a prison camp. During the war, the French army mobilized him late and asked him to take part in a retreat; shortly thereafter, he returned to German-occupied Paris. Intending to join the Resistance, he fled to the Southern Zone. Yet once there, he decided that the Resistance’s “underground action” was a bad fit for him, as he loves “exposed heights.” Instead, he traveled on to Africa, vaguely intending to flee to the UK. In Tunisia the Germans arrested him, and he was imprisoned in a camp in Tripoli.
During World War II (1939–1945), Germany invaded France on May 10, 1940 and took Paris on June 14, 1940. The Resistance refers to French guerilla groups that fought against the Nazi occupiers of France and the Nazi-backed Vichy puppet government that ruled most of France from July 1940–August 1944. The “Southern Zone” refers to the area of France unoccupied by the Nazis. The narrator’s decision not to participate in the Resistance’s “underground action” against the Nazis emphasizes yet again his egotism and his love of domination: by implication he didn’t want to fight without public recognition or the promise of victory (“exposed heights”).
Themes
In the camp, the narrator met a religious Frenchman, whom he nicknamed “Du Guesclin.” Du Guesclin had traveled to Spain to fight and, upon being interned by Franco’s fascists, was depressed that Spain was “blessed by Rome.” In the camp, inveighing against the pope, Du Guesclin decided that they needed to elect another pope who “live[d] among the wretched.”
Francisco Franco (1892–1975) was a fascist general who overthrew the democratic government of Spain in the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) and subsequently ruled Spain as a dictator until his death. In 1948, Pope Pius XII sent a message of blessing to Franco and the Spanish government, which is presumably what Du Guesclin –who seems to have volunteered on the side of the anti-Franco, anti-fascist Republicans during the Spanish Civil War—means when he says that Spain was “blessed by Rome.” The genuinely religious Du Guesclin’s disgust with the official Catholic pope emphasizes the split in the novel between a genuine interest in and respect for religious narratives and a suspicion and contempt for organized religion.
Themes
When Du Guesclin asked who the worst among the prisoners was, the narrator raised his hand, so Du Guesclin nominated him pope, and the other prisoners—half joking, half impressed—agreed. As pope, the narrator ended up in charge of water allotment for the other prisoners. He doesn’t like to remember that time because he ended up drinking the water of another prisoner who then died, telling himself that he had to survive because the prisoners needed him. He says that if Du Guesclin hadn’t already died by that point, he wouldn’t have taken the other prisoner’s water—but Du Guesclin was dead, and so the narrator took the water.
Du Guesclin nominates the narrator as pope because the narrator claims he’s the worst person among the prisoners. The meaning of Du Guesclin’s nomination is ambiguous: Du Guesclin could be mocking the Catholic pope by choosing the “worst” prisoner—or he could be suggesting that because the narrator is self-aware about his own sins and failings, he is actually the “best.” If the latter, this incident may actually have reinforced the narrator’s egotistical tendency to think himself superior to others simply because he is more aware of his flaws, which he believes everyone has. Meanwhile, the narrator’s claim that he wouldn’t have taken the dying prisoner’s water if Du Guesclin had been alive is similarly ambiguous. He could mean that Du Guesclin inspired him to be a better person by positive example—or simply that he was afraid of Du Guesclin’s judgment. In either case, the narrator’s self-justifying decision to take the water because, as pope, the prisoners “needed” him is clearly another example of internally complex hypocrisy—sinning under the aegis of doing good.
Themes
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The narrator says that in telling this story, he’s had a revelation: “one must forgive the pope,” not only because the pope desperately needs forgiveness but also because one can thereby make oneself superior to the pope. Then, after asking the listener to check that the door is closed, the narrator instructs him to open a cupboard and examine the painting therein: a panel, titled “The Just Judges,” stolen in 1934 from a van Eyck altarpiece in Ghent. He explains that a patron of Mexico City sold it to the bartender, who hung it up behind the bar until the narrator told him its history, at which point the bartender gave it to the narrator for safekeeping.
The narrator’s claim that “one must forgive the pope” to make oneself superior to the pope implies that even forgiveness can become a tainted, egotistical action—something one does to dominate another person. Van Eyck’s “The Just Judges” is a real painting stolen from a cathedral altarpiece in Ghent, Belgium in 1934. By imagining that the stolen painting ended up in the narrator’s possession, the novel makes him accessory to an actual crime as well as merely existentially guilty.
Themes
When the listener asks why the narrator never returned the painting, the narrator retorts that the bartender has as much right to the painting as Ghent’s Archbishop; that since people can’t tell the difference between the painting and the reproduction now in the altarpiece, the theft is a victimless crime; that the painting allows him to “dominate” as the sole possessor of truth in a world of falsehood; that he likes chancing incarceration; that the theft of a painting that represents judges on their way to meet an innocent lamb is “justice” because “there is no lamb or innocence”; and that as innocence has been crucified and justice hidden in a cupboard, the narrator himself can operate freely as a judge-penitent.
In sum, the narrator’s various rationalizations for becoming an accessory to art theft suggest that in a secular world, society lacks premade standards and values by which individual actions can be judged. Thus, in a sense, the stolen painting represents the individual’s freedom to choose his or her own values. Yet the rationalizations the narrator gives show that individual values can be internally contradictory or nefarious. For example, the narrator claims that possessing the original painting allows him to “dominate” other people, who only have access to the reproduction. This illustrates how the narrator nefariously values subordinating others. Similarly, the narrator’s claims are internally contradictory: he says both that it’s “justice” to steal the painting because it represents unreal ideals of the “lamb “ (Jesus Christ) and “innocence”—yet in the very next breath he suggests that he needs to hide justice in the cupboard in order to have his own way. That is, he equivocates on whether the theft embodies justice or allows him to avoid justice. In this way, the painting symbolizes not only the necessity for choosing one’s own individual values in a secular world but also the possibility of choosing badly, adopting hypocritical or irrational values.
Themes
The narrator announces that he finally will explain what a judge-penitent is. First, he asks the listener to lock the painting of the judges back in the cupboard. Then he explains that for the past five days, as he has been talking to the listener, he has been acting as judge-penitent. He has been using their conversations to “avoid[] judgment personally […] by extending the condemnation to all.” As a rule, he rejects all possibility of innocence or forgiveness, adding up people’s sins and then sentencing them.
By asking the listener to lock the religious painting that represents justice back in the cupboard, the narrator symbolically suggests his rejection of religious dogma and of objective justice claims. In other words, he symbolically makes himself— the individual—the sole, free judge of his own behavior. Yet immediately afterward, he admits that as judge-penitent, he has not been freely and individually judging himself but trying to “avoid judgment personally[],” showing his cowardice, “by extending the condemnation to all.” In other words, the narrator has all along been attempting to manipulate the listener into accepting his general judgment of humanity in order to avoid judgment in his own individual case.
Themes
The narrator claims that, by sentencing everyone, he is an “advocate of slavery.” Freedom itself always leaves a person “alone” and facing “a court sentence.” Ergo, the narrator argues, every person to avoid freedom must bow to a higher power—and that higher power must be an enslaver since God is “out of style.” Digressing, the narrator claims that many supposedly atheist humanists believe in both Christian values and God but refuse to say so out of egotism and self-hatred, because such a public statement might cause embarrassment.
When the narrator says that freedom leaves the individual “alone” and facing “a court sentence,” he suggests that every individual is responsible for his or her own behavior precisely because every individual is free. This individual responsibility leaves people “alone” and exposes them to both social and legal judgment (“a court sentence”). So that people can avoid this terrifying freedom, which exposes them to judgment, the narrator has become “an advocate of slavery”: that is, he believes that people should abdicate their freedom and thus their responsibility for their own actions by accepting a master. When he says that people must accept a human master because God is “out of style,” meanwhile, he implies that organized religion itself is simply a means by which people give up their individual freedom, abdicate responsibility for their actions, and avoid social judgment.
Themes
The narrator argues that everyone, whether atheist or religious, is a “hypocrite.” Scared of their own freedom and believing “only in sin, never in grace,” they want laws and punishments and powers dominating them so that they can avoid freedom and judgment. They want someone else telling them what’s right and wrong so they don’t have to freely choose for themselves. Admitting that the incident on the Paris bridge showed him his own fear of freedom, the narrator argues that what everyone needs is a “democracy” of total enslavement and total guilt.
Here the narrator essentially summarizes all his negative judgments on humanity, of which he has been trying to convince the listener throughout their acquaintance: all people are “hypocrite[s]”; though some profess religious belief, they don’t believe in God’s “grace” or forgiveness but “only in sin” and guilt; and they want to be dominated to shirk responsibility for their own individual freedom. When the narrator claims that the incident with the woman on the bridge proved his own fear of freedom, it implies that he froze up because he realized he could freely choose to help or not help her—and didn’t want the responsibility.
Themes
The narrator says that since total enslavement isn’t practical yet, he has come up with an interim plan to avoid the laughter and judgment of others: he became a complete “penitent” to earn the right of becoming “a judge.” He lurks at the Mexico City to find targets, especially wayward middle-class men. His practice involves, first, a sophisticated self-condemnation where his self-description becomes a “mirror” for the target. This allows the narrator to transition from condemning himself to condemning a “we” that includes the target. However, the narrator sets himself up as better than the target due to his greater self-knowledge—and goads the target into self-condemnation, which makes the narrator feel better.
When the narrator says that he has become a “penitent” to become a “judge,” he is revealing explicitly that he condemns himself in such stark terms only so that he can pass judgment on other people—who have the same flaws but are less self-aware. Thus, throughout his conversations with the listener, he has been attempting to “mirror” the listener to try to make the listener condemn himself—so that the narrator can dominate and feel superior to the listener.
Themes
The listener laughs when the narrator admits he’s looking forward to the listener’s “confession.” In response, the narrator tells him that though intelligent targets need longer to break down, they contemplate what the narrator has said—and eventually confess. The narrator predicts that the listener will either send him a letter later or return in person—and the narrator will be waiting, as he having discovered a lifestyle that brings him joy, has no reason to move or change.
In Catholic Christianity, “confession”—officially the Sacrament of Penance—involves telling one’s sins to a priest and being forgiven. In law and secular morality, a “confession” is a statement of wrongdoing. When the narrator says that he is looking forward to the listener’s confession, he assumes that the listener is guilty (of something) and that he, the narrator, has the authority to judge that confession in a near-religious or near-legal capacity. The listener’s disbelieving laughter suggests that he finds the narrator’s pretension to authority absurd—but the narrator is undaunted.
Themes
The narrator explains his joy: it isn’t in avoiding judgment after all but in “permit[ting] oneself everything"—permission that comes from loudly judging oneself. Now, he’s still totally egotistical and manipulative, but he can derive pleasure both from his egotism and from his “charming repentance.” This maneuver allows him to “dominate” and to “judge everybody.” Though he occasionally still hears laughter, he uses his method of self-flagellation and domination of others to quiet it again.
Here the narrator reveals that he has substituted self-awareness for any attempt at self-improvement: he hypocritically engages in “charming repentance” to prove his awareness of his sins without any intention of changing his behavior, a tactic that allows him to “dominate” others and “judge everybody” by claiming that everyone is equally bad—but only he is adequately self-aware. Thus, his self-knowledge once again allows him to claim superiority over others, the superiority that his egotism desires.
Themes
The narrator invites the listener to come to the Mexico City that evening and watch the narrator work. Each time he convinces a patron to condemn himself, he feels dominant, like God. The narrator, frenzied with triumph, gets out of bed and paces around. He explains that when he feels this way, he paces by Amsterdam’s canals in the mornings—“for the fall occurs at dawn”—and feels “happy unto death.”
Yet again, the narrator admits that his work as a judge-penitent derives from his egotistical desire to dominate others and that his egotism leads him to feign godhood despite his own nonbelief. His claim that “the fall occurs at dawn” is an allusion to the Fall of Man, the loss of innocence and experience of guilt that occurs at humanity’s very beginnings, its “dawn,” in the Judeo-Christian tradition. His odd claim that he feels “happy unto death,” meanwhile, implies that there is something morbid and deathly about the supposed happiness he derives from dominating and judging others.
Themes
The narrator returns to his bed, asking the listener to “forgive” him. He admits that he became overemotional and that while his interim plan may not be the best, there’s nothing else to do: “we have lost track of the light, the mornings, the holy innocence of those who forgive themselves.” Suddenly, the narrator points out that it’s snowing and insists he must go out. When the listener remonstrates, the narrator asks whether the listener will confess now. Furthermore, the narrator admits that he’s waiting for a target who turns out to be a policeman who’ll arrest him as an accessory to the theft of the painting. Then maybe he could be beheaded and “dominate” as “an exemplar.”
In the immediate context of the scene, it seems that the narrator is asking the listener to “forgive” him for becoming overemotional. Yet given the narrator’s attempts throughout the novel to manipulate and dominate the listener, it is possible that this request for forgiveness betrays the narrator’s repressed understanding that he has wronged the listener. Moreover, when the narrator claims that human beings have “lost […] the holy innocence of those who forgive themselves,” it implies that he knows he could escape from the Catch-22 of egotistical desire for self-regard and loathsome self-knowledge by simply and freely forgiving himself—but he is unable to do so. Instead, he continues to fantasize about how he might “dominate” people even in death.
Themes
When the listener admits that he is not a policeman but a lawyer, the narrator cries out that that explains his fondness for the listener. He insists that he and the listener are similar and asks the listener to confess what happened to him “on the quays of the Seine.” He exhorts the listener to cry out to the woman in black to attempt suicide again so that the listener will have an opportunity to save them “both.” Then the narrator says that luckily this plea is only figurative, as “it’s too late now.”
Here, the narrator attributes to the listener the sin that caused his own “fall” from innocence: his failure to save the woman in black. This attribution completes his attempt to become a “mirror” for the listener, thereby condemning the listener of the egotism and hypocrisy of which the narrator accuses himself. It is possible to read this reversal, in which the narrator’s sins become the listener’s, as an attempt by the novel to implicate all readers (who narratively occupy a similar position to the listener, hearing the narrator’s side of the conversation) in universal guilt. Finally, when the narrator says that luckily “it’s too late now” to save the woman in black, he implies that despite the existential crisis that failing to save the woman in black caused, he would freeze in cowardice in the exact same way if confronted by her suicide again.
Themes
