confession

Confession is the engine and the mask of Jean-Baptiste Clamence's entire performance in The Fall. It is not a private act of contrition but a public, theatrical ritual through which he seizes moral authority. By accusing himself of every vice, Clamence aims to silence the mocking laughter he heard on the Pont des Arts and to escape the judgment of others by becoming the chief prosecutor of the human race. His method, which he calls the profession of "judge-penitent," turns confession into a weapon of domination.

The Method of the Judge-Penitent

Clamence's confession is a calculated performance. He begins by accusing himself "up and down," but he does not beat his breast crudely; instead, he "navigates skillfully, multiplying distinctions and digressions," adapting his words to his listener and leading him to "go me one better." He mingles what concerns himself with what concerns others, choosing features they have in common—the failings they share—and constructs a portrait that is "the image of all and of no one," a mask that makes people say, "Why, surely I've met him!" When the portrait is finished, he shows it with great sorrow, declaring, "This, alas, is what I am!" But at the same time, the portrait he holds out to his contemporaries becomes a mirror. Covered with ashes, tearing his hair, he stands before all humanity, recapitulating his shames, and says, "I was the lowest of the low." Then imperceptibly he passes from the "I" to the "we." When he gets to "This is what we are," the trick has been played and he can tell them off. The more he accuses himself, the more he has a right to judge his listener. Even better, he provokes the listener into judging himself, which relieves Clamence of that much of the burden.

The Origin in Guilt and the Need to Escape Judgment

Clamence's turn to confession as a strategy arises from a traumatic event he cannot escape: the night on the Pont Royal when he heard the body of a young woman strike the water and did nothing. He stood motionless, then walked away and informed no one. That cry, which he later heard again as a laugh on the Pont des Arts, never ceased; it traveled throughout the world and waited for him. He realized that he was not cured, that he was "cornered" and had to "make shift with it." The laughter of the universe, the hidden smiles he perceived on every face, made him feel vulnerable and open to public accusation. He realized that his fellows had an "irresistible vocation for judgment." To dodge that judgment, he had to find a way to judge himself first, and in doing so, to judge everyone else. The idea that comes most naturally to man, he says, is the idea of his innocence, and everyone wants to appeal against something. Confession, in Clamence's hands, becomes the ultimate appeal: by admitting everything, he hopes to be acquitted of nothing, and to make his own guilt so universal that it ceases to be a mark against him alone.

Confession as a Mirror and a Trap for the Listener

Clamence's confession is designed to ensnare his interlocutor. He admits that he has no more friends, only accomplices, and that the whole human race is now his accomplice. He lies in wait particularly for the bourgeois, the straying bourgeois, and draws his subtlest sounds from him like a virtuoso with a rare violin. He expects his listener to eventually give up and tell all, half as a game and half out of emotional upset. He tells his listener, a Parisian lawyer, that he knows they are of the same species, and he asks him directly: "Please tell me what happened to you one night on the quays of the Seine and how you managed never to risk your life." He imagines the listener uttering the words that have never ceased echoing through his own nights: "O young woman, throw yourself into the water again so that I may a second time have the chance of saving both of us!" The confession is thus a trap that forces the listener to recognize his own guilt, making him an accomplice in Clamence's system.

The Paradox of Absolution and Domination

Clamence's confession does not lead to humility or change. He admits that he has accepted duplicity instead of being upset about it, and has settled into it, finding the comfort he was looking for throughout life. He permits himself everything again, without the laughter this time. The confession of his crimes allows him to begin again lighter in heart and to taste a double enjoyment: first of his nature and secondly of a charming repentance. He has found a height to which he is the only one to climb and from which he can judge everybody. He sits enthroned among his bad angels at the summit of the Dutch heaven and watches the multitude of the Last Judgment ascending toward him. He pities without absolving, understands without forgiving, and above all, feels at last that he is being adored. The confession, which began as an attempt to escape judgment, ends as a throne of judgment. Clamence has become a false prophet, an "Elijah without a messiah," who announces the law and declares himself the end and the beginning. His confession is the final, ironic act of a man who has lost track of the light and the holy innocence of those who forgive themselves.