the heights
The heights are a central concept in Jean-Baptiste Clamence's self-conception, representing his psychological need for dominance, moral elevation, and escape from judgment. Clamence associates heights with freedom, power, and a sense of being above the ordinary human condition, while depths and enclosed spaces symbolize guilt, confinement, and the inescapable judgment of others.
Identity and Symbolism
For Clamence, the heights are not merely a physical preference but a fundamental aspect of his identity. He declares that he has "never felt comfortable except in lofty places" and that he needed to feel above in the details of daily life, preferring the bus to the subway, open carriages to taxis, and terraces to closed-in places . He was an enthusiast for sport planes where one's head is in the open, and on boats he was the eternal pacer of the top deck . In the mountains, he fled the deep valleys for the passes and plateaus, considering himself "the man of the mesas" . He had a special loathing for speleologists, whose exploits of reaching "elevation minus eight hundred" seemed to him the exploits of perverted or traumatized characters, with something criminal underlying it . A natural balcony fifteen hundred feet above a sea still visible bathed in sunlight was the place where he could breathe most freely, especially if he were alone, well above the human ants . He could readily understand why sermons, decisive preachings, and fire miracles took place on accessible heights, and he believed that no one meditated in cellars or prison cells—one just became moldy . He understood a man who, having entered holy orders, gave up the frock because his cell, instead of overlooking a vast landscape, looked out on a wall .
Arc Through the Plot
Clamence's attachment to heights is woven into his life story and his eventual fall. His profession as a lawyer satisfied his vocation for summits, setting him above the judge whom he judged in turn and above the defendant whom he forced to gratitude . He lived with impunity, concerned in no judgment, not on the floor of the courtroom but somewhere in the flies like those gods brought down by machinery to transfigure the action . He believed that living aloft is the only way of being seen and hailed by the largest number . After his crisis, he sought refuge in islands, which he liked because "it is easier to dominate them" . He loved Sicily, especially from the top of Mount Etna, in the sunlight, provided he dominated the island and the sea, and Java at the time of the trade winds . In his final state as a judge-penitent, he finds a new height to climb: "Once more I have found a height to which I am the only one to climb and from which I can judge everybody" . He sits enthroned among his bad angels at the summit of the Dutch heaven, watching the multitude of the Last Judgment ascend toward him .
Contrast with Depths and Confinement
The heights are defined in opposition to the depths and enclosed spaces that Clamence finds repulsive. Coalbins, ships' holds, undergrounds, grottoes, and pits were repulsive to him . He describes the little-ease, a dungeon cell not high enough to stand up in nor wide enough to lie down in, where one had to live on the diagonal, and he asks: "Can you imagine in that cell a frequenter of summits and upper decks?" . He contrasts the flat, monotonous, interminable water of the Zuider Zee, where there is no saying where it begins or ends, with the Greek archipelago, where constantly new islands would appear on the horizon, their treeless backbone marking the limit of the sky and their rocky shore contrasting sharply with the sea . In the sharp light of Greece, everything was a landmark, and he felt as if they were scudding along on the crest of the short, cool waves in a race full of spray and laughter .
Thematic Significance
The heights embody Clamence's existential project of dominating life and escaping judgment. His preference for heights is tied to his vanity and his need to feel superior, as he admits: "I always considered myself more intelligent than everyone else, as I've told you, but also more sensitive and more skillful, a crack shot, an incomparable driver, a better lover" . The heights represent a space where he can be "the only one to climb" and from which he can judge everybody . Yet this elevation is ultimately a form of isolation and self-deception. His final vision of himself as a false prophet crying in the wilderness, refusing to come forth, suggests that the heights he has achieved are a barren summit, a desert of stones, fogs, and stagnant waters . The concept thus encapsulates the novel's critique of a self-aggrandizing humanism that seeks to transcend the common condition without accepting its guilt.
