Don't rely on it

Don't rely on it is the motto of Jean-Baptiste Clamence's self-proclaimed house, a phrase that encapsulates his double-faced nature and his fundamental distrust of appearances, sincerity, and the judgments of others. It is the verbal emblem of a man who, after a life of performative virtue and a shattering encounter with his own duplicity, has constructed a new identity as a judge-penitent, a role that thrives on the very unreliability the motto announces.

Origin and Meaning

Clamence introduces the motto in the context of a broader confession about his own vanity and theatricality. Shortly after the evening on the Pont des Arts when he heard a mysterious laugh, he began to see through his own performances. He realized that when he tipped his hat to a blind man he had just helped across the street, the gesture was not for the blind man, who could not see it, but for the public. "After playing my part, I would take the bow," he admits. This self-awareness leads him to imagine his own shop sign: "a double face, a charming Janus, and above it the motto of the house: 'Don't rely on it.'" The motto is thus born from the recognition that his entire life had been a performance, a series of calculated gestures designed to elicit admiration and confirm his own superiority. The double face of Janus, the Roman god of beginnings and transitions who looks both to the past and the future, perfectly mirrors Clamence's own duality: the virtuous lawyer and the secret sensualist, the generous helper and the manipulative egoist.

The Motto in Clamence's Philosophy

The motto "Don't rely on it" is not merely a personal confession but a universal principle that Clamence applies to all human relations. It is the logical conclusion of his discovery that every virtue has a hidden vice, every act of generosity a selfish motive. He had learned that "modesty helped me to shine, humility to conquer, and virtue to oppress." In this light, the motto becomes a warning against the very idea of sincerity. Clamence later advises his listener: "Above all, don't believe your friends when they ask you to be sincere with them. They merely hope you will encourage them in the good opinion they have of themselves." The motto, then, is a tool of disillusionment, a way of stripping away the comforting fictions that people tell themselves and each other. It is the foundational principle of his new profession as a judge-penitent, where he constructs a portrait of universal guilt, a "mask" that is "the image of all and of no one," so that his listener will see himself in it and be forced to confess.

The Motto and the Narrative Structure

The motto "Don't rely on it" also governs the very structure of Clamence's monologue. He admits that his stories may be true or false, but argues that it does not matter: "Don't lies eventually lead to the truth? And don't all my stories, true or false, tend toward the same conclusion?" The reader, like Clamence's interlocutor, is constantly left uncertain about the factual accuracy of his confessions. The laugh on the Pont des Arts, the drowning woman on the Pont Royal, the election as pope in the prison camp—each episode is presented with a mixture of precise detail and deliberate ambiguity. The motto is thus a narrative strategy, a way of keeping the listener (and the reader) off-balance, never quite sure whether to believe what they are hearing. It is the verbal equivalent of the stolen painting, "The Just Judges," which Clamence keeps hidden in his cupboard: the truth is there, but it is inaccessible, and the copy that the world admires is a lie. The motto "Don't rely on it" is the key to this entire labyrinth of confession and deception, a reminder that in Clamence's world, nothing is as it seems.