albert camus and the popular tradition

Orbis Litterarum (1983), 38, 338-362

Albert Camus and the Popular Tradition Evelyn H. Zepp, University of Wisconsin-Parkside, U. S. A .

This study proposes to explore the relationship between Camus and his fiction and the popular tradition of carnival and the grotesque (as presented by Mikhail Bakhtin). The analysis focuses first on the material principle - the “debasement” of abstract concepts to the level of the body, of the concrete. In Camus, this principle most often takes the form of a fusion of body and environment. Secondly, the study analyzes the principle of ambivalence - the presence of “poles” which function simultaneously rather than in opposition. This principle, which is the prerequisite for humor (a neglected side of Camus), appears in “two-in-one images,” in bi-level space, and in the ritual process of crowning-discrowning. The presence of this literary tradition in Camus gives his work the immediate impact of rituaI, and makes a full understanding and appreciation of him impossible if its presence is ignored.

At the Second International Conference on Camus, February 21-23, 1980, Andrt Abbou argued fervently in his presentation‘ that the condemnation of Camus by Sartre during their infamous quarrel arose from Sartre’s complete misunderstanding of the socio-cultural status of Camus (and of Sartre himself). Abbou asserted that Sartre’s stances were shaped by his position among the bourgeois intelligentsia, whereas Camus, far from being “l’homme de la grande tradition classique” o r “l’hkritier des tcrivains bourgeois” (p. 286), was essentially a man of the popular classes, with the resulting ethos and aesthetic. It is this aspect of Camus “homme du peuple” (p. 287) which, in the glare of attention focused on Camus as “spokesman of his times,” has been insufficiently explored.

Without entering into well-known biographical details o r a sociological study, we may stress how very far removed Camus’s origins and youth were from the bourgeois experience with this example: “Je pense ?i un enfant qui vtcut dans un quartier pauvre. Ce quartier, cette maison! I1 n’y avait qu’un Ctage et les escaliers n’ttaient pas kclairks. Maintenant encore, aprks de longues annCes, il pourrait y retourner en pleine nuit. I1 sait qu’il grimperait l’escalier i toute vitesse sans trtbucher une seule fois. Son corps m&me est imprCgnt de cette

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maison. Ses jambes conservent en elles la mesure exacte de la hauteur des marches. Sa main, l’horreur instinctive, jamais vaincue, de la rampe d’escalier. Et c’ttait a cause des cafards.”*

Camus’s attunement to popular values may also be discerned in his activities, particularly in the two great loves of his youth, sports and the theater. We are particularly interested in his early concept of the theater, since it reveals the basis for later artistic developments along lines of the popular tradition. In Camus’s manifesto for his Thtdtre du Travail in Algiers, he stated (our italics): “Un Thtdtre du Travail s’organise a Alger grdce A un effort collectif et dtsinttressi. Ce thC2tre a conscience de la valeur artistique propre a toute Iitttrature de masse, veut dtmontrer que l’art peut gagner quelquefois sortir de sa tour d’ivoire et croit que le sens de la beautt est insiparable d‘un certain sens de I‘humanitt . . . Son effort est de restituer quelgues valeurs humaines et non dapporter de nouveaux thkmes de

The collective celebration of human values, the spirit infusing this passage, is one of the most important elements of the popular tradition of carnival and the grotesque. It is this tradition, as convincingly set forth by Mikhail Bakhtin in his Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics and Rabelais and his World, whose relationship with Camus and his work we propose to explore.

I. The Carnival Tradition

This relationship is first revealed in Camus’s concept of the theater, whose various aspects he enumerated in the essay “Pourquoi je fais du thtiitre?” The affinity with characteristics of carnival as defined by Bakhtin is striking. We will examine some of the most important of these.

One of the primary characteristics of carnival is that it is a community existence in which hierarchies break down, thus creating a utopian experience of “community, freedom, equality, and a b ~ n d a n c e . ” ~ It is a universal experience, with its own laws and life: “[The people] live in [carnival], and everyone participates because its very idea embraces all the people. While carnival lasts, there is no other life outside it. During carnival time life is subject only to its law, that is, the laws of its own freedom” (Rabelais, p. 7). Camus expresses a similar sense of community offering an alternate society when he speaks of the theater: “je ne partage avec mes collaborateurs que les ennuis et les joies d’une action commune.. .. Ici, nous sommes tous liCs les uns aux autres sans que chacun

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cesse d’&tre libre, ou B peu prts: n’est-ce pas une bonne formule pour la future socitt~?”’

Secondly, this utopian, collective existence is actually a second world: “These forms of protocol and ritual based on laughter . . . offered a completely different nonofficial, extraecclesiastical and extrapolitical aspect of the world, of man, and of human relations; they built a second world and a second life outside officialdom” (Rabelais, pp. 5-6). This second life has its own truth; it escapes the false “truth of this world” (Rabelais, p. 49), in order to affirm its own perspective on existence. One of the most important elements in this perspective is the suspension of hierarchical precedence: “Carnival celebrated temporary libera- tion from the prevailing truth and from the established order; it marked the suspension of all hierarchical rank, privileges, norms, and prohibitions . . . a special form of free and familiar contact reigned among people who were usually divided by the barriers of caste, property, profession, and age” (Rabelais, p. 10). Camus feels clearly the same sense of a second life in theater, another world which has its own truth: “je trouve que le thkitre est un lieu de vkritk. On dit gtnkralement, il est vrai, que c’est le lieu de l’illusion. ”en croyez rien. C’est la socittt plut6t qui vivrait d’illusions . . . Oui, croyez-moi, pour vivre dans la vtritk, jouez la comkdie! . . . A partir du moment oh un auteur rkussit au contraire B parler B tous avec simplicitt tout en restant ambitieux dans son sujet . . . il rtconcilie dam la salle toutes les classes et tous les esprits dans une mCme &motion ou un mCme rire” (Thtdtre, pp. 1725-26).

Thirdly, this “carnival truth,” which is opposed to the serious, stable truths of social order and hierarchies, is linked to the joy and exaltation which comes from the realization of change and relativity. “Carnival was the true feast of time, the feast of becoming, change and renewal. It was hostile to all that was immortalized and completed” (Rabeluis, p. 10). Carnival truth necessitated a new form of communication, new forms and symbols, all of which are filled with “this pathos of change and renewal, with the sense of the gay relativity of prevailing truths and authorities” (Rabelais, p. 11). Camus speaks of the “exaltation” felt by those working together on a “grand spectacle,” an elation due in large part to the realization of the impermanence of the experience: “il est dts lors d’autant plus aim6 de ses ouvriers qu’il doit mourir un jour” (Thtcitre, p. 1724).

Fourthly, the new forms and symbols necessitated by carnival truth are closely tied to the material or the concrete (as opposed to the abstract, serious, official order). Focus on the material is the basis of the principle of grotesque

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realism, closely linked to carnival. Its essential mode of operation is degradation, “the lowering of all that is high, spiritual, ideal, abstract; it is a transfer to the material level, to the sphere of earth and body in their indissoluble unity. [All forms ofl grotesque realism degrade, bring down to earth, turn their subject into flesh” (Rubelais, pp. 19-20). Camus, in turn, speaks of the play as arising from “un lieu prkcis et chargt de matikre” (Thtcitre, p. 1725), and of the theater as “un mitier oh le corps compte” (Thtcitre, p. 1721). It is the material element of the theater which helps Camus “fuir l’abstraction qui menace tout tcrivain” (Thtdtre, p. 1724).

Finally, carnival cannot exist without laughter which, putting all things into balanced perspective, frees man from cosmic terror and is thus an assertion of the human. In this sense, carnival is the principle of life itself. “The grotesque liberates man from all the forms of inhuman necessity that direct the prevailing concept of the world. , . , The principle of laughter and the carnival spirit on which grotesque is based destroys this limited seriousness and all pretense of an extratemporal meaning and unconditional value of necessity. It frees human consciousness, thought, and imagination for new potentialities” (Rabelais, p. 49). “Carnival is the people’s second life, organized on the basis of laughter” (Rabelais, p. 8); “People were, so to speak, reborn for new, purely human relations” (Rabelais, p. 10). Camus describes theater as the most universal genre, one which creates a similar community of life and laughter: “il rkconcilie dans la salle . . . tous les esprits dans une m2me kmotion ou un m&me rire” (ThkBtre, p. 1726); “[une vertu d‘art et de folie] nous tiendra debout et nous gardera en bonne et solide humeur. . . . Mais oui, c’est la vie m&me, forte, libre, dont nous avons tous besoin. Allons donc nous occuper du prochain spectacle” (ThtBtre, p. 1728).

These qualities are not the only characteristics of carnival; for example, we have not yet spoken of the central element: the ambivalent, dual vision of life. They do, however, reveal an undeniable carnival attitude in Camus’s approach to the theater. Of course, we cannot, nor do we wish to, claim that this is his only approach; one has only to consider Camus’s own comments on his desire to be a classical writer (see, for example, “L’Intelligence et l’tchaufaud”). And, of course, the parallel of theater with carnival breaks down at one very important point: the world of theater normally splits into two worlds, those of the actors and the spectators, while the carnival experience is universal: “In fact, carnival does not know footlights, in the sense that it does not acknowledge any distinction between actors and spectators. Footlights would destroy a carnival,

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as the absence of footlights would destroy a theatrical performance. . . . While carnival lasts, there is no other life outside it” (Rabelais, p. 7). Nevertheless, in his essay, Camus is less concerned with the distance between actor and spectator than with the human relationships created or presupposed among the actors or between actors and spectators, relationships which do qualify as carnivalistic.

We must also recognize that the tradition being examined is no longer that of the concrete carnival experience itself. Carnival has not been an active influence since the seventeenth century. Rather, the carnival tradition has been continued by what Bakhtin calls the “carnivalization of literature”: “From the second half of the 17th century carnival almost completely ceases to be a direct source of carnivalization, relinquishing its place to already-carnivalized literature; thus carnivalization becomes a purely literary tradition . . . carnivalization becomes part of the literary tradition of genre.”6 Camus would have been exposed to this literary tradition through his familiarity with the carnivalized literature of Rabelais, Molikre, and Dostoevsky, among others. But our purpose is not to explore sources, but rather to stress the presence of this literary tradition, this genre, in Camus, along with the previously ackcowledged traditions of the classical, the moralistic, etc. Although much of Camus differs from the carnival tradition, we claim that the carnival genre in literary tradition is basic to much of the structure of Camus’s thought and art and that a recognition of its presence is essential to a full appreciation and understanding of Camus.

The question is thus: to what extent does the carnival attitude which appears in Camus’s concept of the theater extend to the rest of his work? We cannot answer this question fully here, but will limit the scope of our study to the most essential principles of carnival and to an analysis of their role in Camus’s fiction.

11. The Material Principle

One of the most important elements of the carnival tradition which we perceive in Camus is the tendency to “degrade,” to recast “all that is high, spiritual, ideal, abstract . . . to the material level, to the sphere of earth and body” (Rabelais, p. 19).7 The quotation from “L’Envers et l’endroit” which we cited earlier is an example. The abstract spiritual experience of b/eing a child living in poverty is completely recast into an experience of the flesh: of the legs which have been imprinted with the height of each step, of the hand which has never lost the feel of the handhold and its cockroaches, of the whole body which “est imprCgnt de


cette maison” (see note 2). We can already discern in this example the fusion of body and environment which will define the material principle in Camus.

“Debasement” to the material is essential to the construction of L’Etranger. Whatever other interpretations we may give to it, the fundamental structure of the novel is created from physical sensations - heat and cool, light and shadow, and a series of other physical experiences. Whatever the question or problem, Meursault appears to experience it only on the material, physical level. His statement to his lawyer summarizes this quality: “je lui ai expliqut que j’avais une nature telle que mes besoins physiques dtrangeaient souvent mes sentiments.”* The whole experience of his mother’s funeral is reduced to sensations: light, heat, fatigue, etc. No abstraction escapes material debasement. Where the priest sees the divine face arise from the prison stone walls, Meursault finds “je n’avais rien vu surgir de cette sueur de pierre” (L’Etranger, p. 1209). Meursault “debases” the abstract idea of love and marriage proposed by Marie: “J’ai eu trks envie d’elle parce qu’elle avait une belle robe B raies rouges et blanches et des sandales de cuir” (L’Etranger, p. 1150). Abstract concepts of age, loyalty, love, fidelity, etc. are debased in the paired image of Salamano and his dog (both of whom, further, are covered with crusty sores).

More centrally, the murder and trial are both processes of degradation, often comic. The serious, “official” effort of thejuge d‘instruction to make Meursault confront moral and religious attitudes to his situation is debased and negated in Meursault’s physical world: “I1 agitait son crucifix presque au-dessus de moi. A vrai dire, je l’avais trts ma1 suivi dans son raisonnement, d’abord parce que j’avais chaud et qu’il y avait dans son cabinet de grosses mouches qui se posaient sur ma figure” (L’Etranger, p. 1175). Moral fervor is debased into the irritation of flies, and the waving crucifix appears to be a fly-swatter.

The trial is a confrontation of the official world and the carnivalesque world in which Meursault exists. Where the prosecutor seeks moral, psychological, or social reasons for Meursault’s act - “I1 disait qu’il s’ttait penchk sur [mon i?ime]” (L’Etranger, p. 1197), Meursault’s explanation is the inexplicable (to the official world) interrelationship of the body and the material world (in the form of the sun which caused his finger to pull the trigger). If society is to be condemned in the book, it is through the carnival rejection of the official, serious world, in which carnival community is not possible: “J’aurais voulu essayer de lui expliquer cordialement, presque avec affection. . . . Mais naturellement, dans l’ttat oc l’on m’avait mis, je ne pouvais parler B personne sur ce ton. Je n’avais pas le droit de me montrer affectueux, d’avoir de la bonne volontt” (L’Etranger,

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pp. 1196-97). The official world, “comme une eau incolore” (L’Etranger, p. 1199), destroys the vitality and community which are part of the second life of the people, but this life is the only one which has an impact on Meursault. While his lawyer is speaking, Meursault hears only the sound of the trumpet of a street merchant (L’Etranger, p. 1199; see Rabelais, pp. 18 1-82, for the role of merchant “cris” in the development of the carnival grotesque). Meursault is constantly drawn to this other world; it is his world: “Le cri des vendeurs . . . I’appel des marchands . . . tout cela recomposait pour moi un itintraire d’aveugle, que je connaissais bien avant d’entrer en prison” (L’Etranger, p. 1 194). Throughout the trial, the arguments of the lawyers and the activity in general are reduced to the physical - the movement of fans, the heat, the gestures: “Etaient-elles si diffkrentes, d’ailleurs, ces plaidoiries? L‘avocat levait les bras et plaidait coupable, mais avec excuses. Le procureur tendait ses mains et dtnonCait la culpabilitt, mais sans excuses” (L’Etranger, p. 1195). Even the most abstract, if nonetheless final, action - the condemnation to death - can be nothing but material for Meursault: he attempts to imagine the cessation of his heartbeat (L’Etranger, p. 1205) and considers death as “la mtcanique” -the working ofthe guillotine. The mechanics of fate and the “mtcanique” of death come together in one concrete image.

Finally, the murder scene has interesting implications when viewed from the vantage point of the grotesque. The sudden increase in metaphors has been fully documented.’ Various interpretations of these images are possible - hostile nature personified, the sun as fate, etc. However, one can also examine the scene as the creation of the grotesque image par excellence, that of the cosmic body, in which earth and body are seen as one inseparable entity: “We find at the basis of grotesque imagery a special concept of the body as a whole and of the limits of this whole” (Rubehis, p. 315); “the body swallows the world and is itself swallowed by the world . . . the confines between bodies and between the body and the world are overcome: there is an interchange and an interorientation” (Rabeluis, p. 317); “the grotesque body is cosmic and universal. It stresses elements common to the entire cosmos: earth, water, fire, air; it is directly related to the sun, to the stars [note that the latter are the two most important images in L’Etranger]” (Rabelais, p. 318). In the murder scene, Meursault acts in conjunction with the sun; they act as one. He has become part of the cosmic body. He attempts to explain this at the trial, but the latter, realm of the “official truth,” is unable to comprehend this carnival truth. Although the absurd (which we shall shortly consider in more detail) is generally considered as the opposition


and separation between man (or his consciousness) and the universe (Meursault states that he has destroyed “l’kquilibre du jour” - L’Etranger, p. 1168), this is only one aspect of it. Man is also an integral part of his universe and, in L’Etranger, there is a movement, particularly at the level of the imagery being discussed, toward the carnival-grotesque vision of man integrated into the universe. Whereas in the murder scene the cosmos takes on qualities of the human body: “la mer haletait de toute la respiration rapide et ktouffke de ses petites vagues” (L’Etranger, p. 1167), etc., as the novel progresses, Meursault’s body takes on the qualities of the cosmos (our italics): “je pouvais sentir les ondes de mon sang circuler rtgulikrement en moi” (L’Etranger, p. 1206); “Je crois que j’ai dormi parce que je me suis rtveillt avec des e‘toiles sur le visage. . . . La merveilleuse paix de cet t t t endormi entrait en moi comme une marke” (L’Etranger, p. 121 1); “je m’ouvrais pour la premikre fois A la tendre indiffkrence du monde” (L’Etranger, p. 121 1). Meursault’s final “indifference” to the world (L’Etranger, p. 1211) comes not from a sense of antagonism to this world, but from his feeling of being part of it: “De l’tprouver si pareil A moi, si fraternel enfin” (L’Etranger, p. 121 1). Paradox and oxymoron are integral to the carnival spirit: Meursault can find the world both “tender” and “indifferent” without contradiction. Robert Champigny has spoken of the parallel between the starry night in the final tableau and Meursault’s final “destiny””; he understands Camus’s principle of final unity among elements in opposition, a carnival principle about which we shall have more to say.

The carnival principle of debasement which we have demonstrated in some detail in L’Etranger is also present in La Peste. There are various images which debase official truth; for example, the body of the dead boy takes on “une pose de crucifit grotesque.”” More importantly, as in L’Etranger, there is a dual movement toward the creation of the cosmic body. One of the central images of La Peste is that of respiration. This image is involved in the creation of the cosmic body in three stages: 1) First, there are the human attempts to breathe - the old asthmatic and the pulmonary form of the plague, for example. Release from the plague is for each that “il allait Etre permis de respirer” (La Peste, p. 1441). 2) Secondly, as in the murder scene in L’Etranger, the universe acquires this human quality. A few examples will suffice: “Un souffle tikde qui venait de la mer” (La Peste, p. 1346); “la chaleur ttait . . . Ctouffante” (La Peste, p. 1386); “la sourde respiration des vagues contre la falaise” (La Peste, p. 1427); “I1 en [de la ville] venait un souffle chaud et malade” (La Peste, p. 1428); “la grande respiration blEme d’une nuit polaire” (La Peste, p. 1458); “l’air . . . ttouffant”

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(La Peste, p. 1397); “cette ville Ctouffie” (La Peste, p. 1466). 3) Finally, the human body becomes part of the movement of cosmic elements; again, as in L’Etranger, at the approach of death (the boy’s): “sa fr&le carcasse pliait sous le vent furieux de la peste et craquait sous les souffles rCpttCs de la fikvre” (La Peste, p. 1394). At the climactic moment of Tarrou’s death, the human body has been totally absorbed into the elements which are present throughout the text: “L’orage qui secouait ce corps de soubresauts convulsifs l’illuminait d’Cclairs de plus en plus rares et Tarrou dtrivait lentement au fond de cette temptte. . . . Cette forme humaine . . . tordue par tous les vents haineux du ciel, s’immergeait a ses yeux dans les eaux de la peste et il ne pouvait rien contre ce naufrage” (La Peste, 1457). This struggle reduces cosmic terror, “the fear of the immeasurable, the infinitely powerful” (Rabelais, p. 235), to the level of a material principle within the human body. Whereas Paneloux, especially in his first sermon, uses the principle of cosmic terror to “oppress man and his consciousness” (Rabelais, p. 235), Rieux and the others banish cosmic terror by reducing it to and fighting it on the material level. The doctor, symbolic of this attitude, recognizes no other level as meaningful; he may be tired, saddened, etc. by his struggle, but he is not terrified. His attitude is a carnival attitude: “The struggle against cosmic terror in all its forms and manifestations did not rely on abstract hope or on the eternal spirit, but on the material principle in man himself. Man assimilated the cosmic elements: earth, water, air, and fire; he discovered them and became vividly conscious of them in his own body. He became aware of the cosmos within himself‘ (Rabelais, pp. 335-36). Thus, although the doctor’s (and man’s) final victory is not assured in La Peste (as it is in the carnival spirit), a carnival principle which combats and destroys cosmic terror, through its reduction to the material, bodily level, is nevertheless definitely at work in the text: “The images reflecting this struggle are often interwoven with images of a parallel struggle in the individual body against the memories of an agonizing birth and the fear of the throes of death. . . . Folk culture did not know this fear and overcame it through laughter, through lending a bodily substance to nature and the cosmos” (Rabelais, note 9, p. 336).

La Peste is also structured around another important material carnival principle: that of the “pathos of change and renewal, with the sense of the gay relativity of prevailing truths and authorities” (Rabelais, p. 11). As in L’Etranger, a second world is created, which is in contrast to the “official” world. This second world destroys official truth, hierarchy, and inequality: “C’est en vain que les autoritts essaykrent d’introduire de la hitrarchie dans ce nivellement”


(La Peste, p. 1357); “ils ttaient installts dans un nouvel ordre” (La Pesre, p. 1364). Most of all, in contrast to the official world, with its hierarchies which fix and isolate each individual, the plague world is a collective world (there are abundant examples in the text): “I1 n’y avait plus alors de destins individuels, mais une histoire collective qui Ctait la peste et des sentiments partagts par tous” (La Peste, p. 1355); “la peste fut notre affaire B tous” (La Peste, p. 1273).”

This second world, unlike the official world, is the world of change and renewal, of death and rene~a1. I~ The text insists on the cycle of the seasons, and on the people’s new awareness of this cycle: “Les couleurs du ciel et les odeurs de la terre qui font le passage des saisons Ctaient, pour la premitre fois, sensibles B tous” (La Peste, p. 131 1). Just as individual deaths fade into collectivity during the progress of the plague, so the progression of the plague is integrated into the continuous flux of existence. Rieux’s awareness that there is no definite victory against the plague (La Peste, p. 1474) is, in this context, an awareness of the total vision of existence. Rather than constituting despair, it asserts the “relativity” of existence. In the text, the world “recommencer” constantly reoccurs; the movement in the chronicle is from spring to spring: a cycle, a constant rebeginning. The plague parallels the movement of time in the text, and this time is “all destroying and all renewing” (Dostoevsky, p. 102). As part of this cycle, the text, throughout most of which death has had its turn, ends with the other pole of the cycle, with a true carnival of joyous celebration: “I1 reste donc au narrateur B se faire le chroniqueur des heures de joie” (La Peste, p. 1461); “Toute la ville se jeta dehors pour Eter. . . . On dansait sur toutes les places. . . . Les cloches de la ville sonntrent a la volte, pendant tout I’aprbs-midi. . . . Tous criaient ou riaient. . . . Pour le moment, des gens d’origines trbs diffbrentes se coudoyaient et fraternisaient. L’tgalitt que la prksence de la mort n’avait pas rtaliste en fait, la joie de la dtlivrance I’ttablissait, au moins pour quelques heures” (La Peste, pp. 1463-64); “Rieux marchait toujours. A mesure qu’il avanqait, la foule grossissait autour de lui, le vacarme s’enflait. . . . Peu B peu, il se fondait dans ce grand corps hurlant dont il comprenait de mieux en mieux le cri qui, pour une part au moins, Ctait son cri” (La Peste, p. 1466); “des rues tcartkes s’emplissaient B nouveau du bourdonnement d’une foule en liesse” (La Peste, p. 147 1). All of the carnival elements are present: community existence, sharing of a common emotion, joy and laughter, universality, equality.

It is worth noting that the same spirit of renewal appears at the end of L’Etranger, even though in this text it cannot work through the collective existence of a whole people, but must arise from the fate of an individual: “Pour

348 Evelyn H. Zepp

la premitre fois depuis bien longtemps, j’ai pens6 h maman. I1 m’a semblt que je comprenais pourquoi B la fin d’une vie elle avait pris un ‘fianct,’ pourquoi elle avait joui h recommencer. . . . Si prts de la mort, maman devait s’y sentir libtrte et pr&te B tout revivre. Personne, personne n’avait le droit de pleurer sur elle. Et moi aussi, je me suis senti pr&t h tout revivre” (L’Etranger, p. 121 1).

Finally, it can be demonstrated that the image of the plague itself, which might seem to be in contrast to “gay relativity,” is indeed proper to the carnival- grotesque tradition. It is fitting here to cite Bakhtin’s comments on the plague image in Boccaccio: “the plague . . . grants the right to use other words, to have another approach to life and to the world. Not only have all conventions been dropped, but all laws ‘both human and divine’ are silenced. Life has been lifted out of its routine, the web of conventions has been torn; all the official hierarchic limits have been swept away. The plague has created its own unique atmosphere that grants both outward and inward rights” (Rabelais, pp. 272-73). The plague (image or experience) allows a vision of a second life. Negative if considered only in itself, it has a positive aspect when viewed from the carnival perspective - which never considers events or beings in isolation. The plague has a positive side - as a regenerating force which, in La Peste, for example, allows the collective experience and a new awareness of life. In the carnival experience, life and death, positive and negative, cannot be separated. The experience of regeneration is a necessary part of the chronicle of the plague. It is represented in the festive ending, as we have seen, and in the fraternal swim in the sea of Rieux and Tarrou. The warmth of the earth passes to the sea and then to the men and regenerates them: “Rieux savait que Tarrou se disait, comme h i , que la maladie venait de les oublier, que cela itait bien, et qu’il fallait maintenant recommencer” (La Peste, p. 1429). The cycle begins anew.

Considered another way, the problem of the plague image is the problem of the absurd. Can one speak of a positive pole when all of Camus resounds with revolt against death, against man’s separation from a meaningless universe, and against the absurd fate of the individual? Yes, for these elements are only part of Camus’s vision. The absurd, correctly understood, is not a tragic vision, a statement of human helplessness in the face of inhuman necessity. The absurd arises as much from Camus’s sense of the joy of human existence, from his love of life, from his feeling of unity with nature, as it does from his awareness of life’s meaninglessness or its end in death. This joy is particularly evident in the lyrical essays, in Noces, for example: “Je comprends ici ce qu’on appelle gloire: le droit d’aimer sans mesure. I1 n’y a qu’un seul amour dans ce monde. Etreindre un


corps de femme, c’est aussi retenir contre soi cette joie Sttrange qui descend du ciel vers la mer. Tout B l’heure, quand je me jetterai dans les absinthes pour me faire entrer leur parfum dans le corps, j’aurai conscience, contre tous les prtjugts, d‘accomplir une vCritC qui est celle du soleil et sera aussi celle de ma mort. Dans un sens, c’est bien ma vie que je joue ici. . . . J’aime cette vie avec abandon et veux en parler avec libertt: elle me donne l’orgueil de ma condition d’homme. Pourtant, on me l’a souvent dit: il n’y a pas de quoi Ctre fier. Si, il y a de quoi: ce soleil, cette mer, mon coeur bondissant de jeunesse, mon corps au gofit de sel et l’immense dStcor oc la tendresse et la gloire se rencontrent dans le jaune et le bleu.”I4 The absurd is a carnival vision: it stresses the human, it refuses despair and cosmic terror, and its “tragic” side is impossible without this joy of life: the one cannot exist without nor other than within the other. The absurd is thus fundamentally dual, what Bakhtin calls dialogical, and what Julia Kristeva, writing on Bakhtin, calls a dvad,” that is, two elements in a continual state of interaction, inseparable from one another. If Camus terms the absurd a “divorce,” it is a divorce which is not essentially a dichotomy, but rather a tension, a consciousness of both “sides.” The absurd is “une confrontation et une lutte sans repos”;I6 “Le premier de ses caractkres B cet tgard est qu’elle ne peut se diviser. Dttruire un de ses termes, c’est la dttruire tout entikre” (Mythe, pp. 120-21); “L’absurde est essentiellement un divorce. I1 n’est ni dans l’un ni dans l’autre des StlStments comparts. I1 nait de leur confrontation . . . l’absurde n’est pas dans l’homme . . . ni dans le monde, mais dans leur prStsence commune” (Mythe, p. 120). As a “two-in-one” element, the absurd is thus a fundamental expression in Camus of a major characteristic of the carnival spirit, the principle of ambivalence.

111. Ambivalence

If we have not yet discussed La Chute, it is because in this text all carnival principles, including the material, are subordinate to or depend upon the principle of ambivalence, which functions in the text at several levels. This text will therefore be the focus of our discussion of ambivalence.

What is carnival ambivalence? It is first of all, as seen in the discussion of the absurd, a dual vision in which there is not opposition but simultaneous presence or interaction: “The essence of the grotesque is precisely to present a contradictory and double-faced fullness of life. Negation and destruction (death

Evelyn H. Zepp 3 50

of the old) are included as an essential phase, inseparable from affirmation, from the birth of something new and better” (Rabelais, p. 62). Ambivalence explains the manner in which the plague image or the absurd itself function within the carnival spirit: the ambivalence of all the “serio-comical genres” (Dostoevsky, pp. 87ff) denies any tragic one-sidedness; there is the positive pole which cannot be separated from the negative.

The question of the positive pole of ambivalence involves the question of the comic. Perhaps one of the most neglected aspects of Camus’s work is laughter and the humorous. Twenty years ago, Germaine Brie pleaded for critics to see beyond the “many grim, humorless bleakly moralistic images of Camus held up to us by our grim humorless cr i t i~ism,”’~ and to recognize, beyond the serious- philosophical-classical Camus, the presence of humor: “‘Is there a theme in your work, important to you, and which you think has been overlooked by your commentators?’ a journalist asked Albert Camus. . . . ‘Humor,’ Camus answered, with a good deal of reason! To this omission one might also add another, connected with the first: insight into the properly esthetic values of Camus’ fictional work” (Brie, p. 41). We believe that this omission has still not been remedied and that “A whole dimension of Camus’ work is thereby obliterated and, with it, Camus’ fundamental view of the figures that people his universe in their relation to what we call ‘reality”’ (Brie, p. 42). In other words, awareness of the carnival spirit in Camus should cause critics to be more conscious of the presence of humor in Camus, and vice versa.

An analysis of humor in Camus is more than can be undertaken within the scope of this study. What we can examine, however, is the phenomenon of what Bakhtin calls “reduced laughter,” that is, laughter as a structuring principle. It is characteristic of “official truth” that it can see only one side of a question. Carnival laughter, on the other hand, arises from “the sense of the gay relativity of prevailing truths and authorities” (Rabelais, p. 1 I), from the awareness of two or more sides to a matter. In the scene with the juge d‘instruction in L’Etranger, the crucifix is his symbol of serious truth, the official order of life and society. When, however, Meursault’s vision attaches the symbolic possibility of a fly- swatter to the crucifix, the simultaneous double vision makes comedy possible. Thus, the “carnivalized image” (Dostoevsky, p. 137) which is determined by laughter and is its prerequisite (although it may not itself be overtly comic) is characterized by ambivalence; it will present a phenomenon in at least two of its aspects. In it, “derision and triumph, praise and abuse are inseparably fused” (Dostoevsky, p. 137). Arising directly from the carnival spirit of life as constant


flux, the carnivalized image structured by the laughter of carnival refuses the fixed and finished and seeks to create “two-in-one images” which “seize and capture a phenomenon in the process of change and transition and . . .fix both poles of evolution within a phenomenon in their continuous, creative, renewing changeability: death is forseen in birth and birth in death . . . discrowning in coronation, etc. Carnival laughter does not allow any one of these elements of change to be absolutized or grow stiff and cold in one-sided seriousness” (Dostoevsky, p. 137). The carnivalized image is thus exemplified by images such as pregnant death or the mother’s loins as a grave. “All of the images of carnival are two-in-one images, they unite within themselves both poles of change and crisis: birth and death (the image of pregnant death), benediction and damnation (the benedictory carnival curses, with simultaneous wishes of death and rebirth), praise and condemnation, youth and age, top and bottom, face and backside, stupidity and wisdom” (Dostoevsky, p. 103).

A prelude to a study of the comic in Camus is thus the exploration of the ambivalent image. The two-in-one image is indeed a consistent structural principle in Camus. Perhaps the most obvious example is that of light and dark (a fundamental carnival couple) in L’Etranger. The sun develops as an image of both life and death. As life, for example, the sun has the same warmth as a human presence: “les deux chaleurs de son corps [Marie’s] et du soleil m’ont un peu endormi” (L’Etranger, p. 1163), or is a totally harmonious, integrated part of Meursault’s existence: “j’ttais occupt B tprohver que le soleil me faisait du bien” (L’Etranger, p. 1162). As death, the sun causes Meursault to kill; it is “tcrasant” (L’Etranger, p. 1165); it sends out swords of light to strike him (L’Etranger, pp. 1167, 1168). But the fusion process of the two-in-one image does not stop here. Light is also opposed to darkness, shadow, or coolness (in Part TWO), to the “soirs dans les prisons” (L’Etranger, p. 1183). This opposition is also fused into one image at the end of the text, in the image of the starry night (a reunion of light and dark). Without entering into various interpretations of these images, one can see that the series of images of light and dark becomes a complex, multi- layered, ambivalent “two-in-one” image.’*

Further, this image does not remain in isolation, but is fused into a web of ambivalent images. For example, at the funeral of Meursault’s mother, the carnival truth of death in life and life in death embodied in the ambivalent image of light is supported by the suggestion of the grotesque image of pregnant death. Meursault remarks on the size of the bellies of the old women: “Presque toutes les femmes portaient un tablier et le cordon qui les serrait B la taille faisait encore

352 Evelyn H. Zepp

ressortir leur ventre bombt. Je n’avais encore jamais remarquk 2 quel point les vieilles femmes pouvaient avoir du ventre” (L’Etranger, p. 1131).

The two-in-one image (always expressing the dual, ambivalent carnival truth of life) may also take the form of the double: “Paired images, chosen for contrast (high and low, fat and thin, etc.) and for similarity (doubles and twins) are characteristic of the carnival mode of thinking” (Dostoevsky, pp. 103-4). In Camus, doubles appear both as other characters and as mirror images. Meursault is reflected in the young reporter: “Et j’ai eu l’impression bizarre d’ktre regard6 par moi-m&me” (L’Etranger, p. 1186), and contrasted in the “femme automate.” As mirror image, Meursault sees himself as double: “je me suis regard6 dans ma gamelle de fer. I1 m’a semblt que mon image restait strieuse alors m&me que j’essayais de lui sourire” (L’Etranger, p. 1183). In La Chute, Clamence also sees a double in his mirror reflection: “Mon image souriait dans la glace, mais il me sembla que mon sourire ttait double.”’’ There are suggestions of the double in the character of the interlocutor: “Je savais bien que nous ttions de la mkme race” (La Chute, p. 1551), and Clamence would suggest that everyone is his double: “le portrait que je tends 2 mes contemporains devient un miroir” (La Chute, p. 1547), “Ne sommes-nous pas tous sernblables” (La Chute, p. 1551). These relationships are, however, more complex; they are examples of “a double which discrowns its counterpart” (Dostoevsky, p. 105). This form of ambivalence shapes the relationship of Clamence to his interlocutor, and from there, forms the basis of a complex network of relationships between author, narrator, character, reader, and text.

Indeed, the reduced laughter shaping the two-in-one image is the foundation of a whole process of carnival ambivalence in La Chute, a process which involves multi-level space, the carnival ritual par excellence of crowning-discrowning, and ultimately, the whole communicative process of the text (its dialogical prose, its relationship of word to word in the process of discourse between character and interlocutor, author and character, reader and text). Within the confines of this study, we can only outline the most important aspects of this process in La Chute.

The two-in-one image itself appears in numerous ways in La Chute. Clamence refers to the imaginary “enseignes” which would reveal the ambivalent carnival truth, the true dual nature, of individuals: “Imaginez des cartes de visite: Dupont, philosophe froussard, ou propriktaire chrktien, ou humaniste adultkre, on a le choix, vraiment. Mais ce serait l’enfer!” (La Chute, p. 1499). Emblematically for the whole text, Clamence’s own “enseigne” would be Janus:


“Je connais la mienne en tout cas: une face double, un charmant Janus” (La Chute, p. 1499). Of course, the ultimate form of the ambivalent Janus in the text is the image of the “juge-phitent.”

This two-in-one image is the foundation of an ever more complex ambivalent system, linked to the text’s fictional space and to its ritual process of crowning- discrowning. The space of a carnivalized text is intimately linked to its ultimate sense, since “Carnivalization made possible the transfer of ultimate questions from the abstract philosophical sphere, through the carnival attitude toward the world, to the concretely sensuous plane of images and events which are in accord with the carnival spirit, dynamic, diverse and vivid” (Dostoevsky, p. 110). We have already seen to what extent the image of the cosmic body links the space of L’Etranger and La Peste to the ultimate questions which they consider. In La Chute, the question of space is even more important and complex; it involves the multi-level space of the Menippean satire and the mystery play (both generically related to carnival - see Dostoevsky, Chapter Four), and the specifically carnival space of the carnival square and the threshold.

Since the carnival experience is utopian and universal, the world of the carnival becomes the world itself, or at least its multi-level representation through Olympus (or heaven), earth, and the nether world (or hell). Of these, the nether world is particularly important. It is closest to the carnival spirit, for it has the absolute topographical meaning of the latter’s “downward” logic, of material debasement. “The nether world equalizes representatives of all earthly circumstances; there the emperor and the slave, the rich man and the beggar meet on equal terms and enter into familiar contact; death discrowns all those who wear crowns in life” (Dostoevsky, p. 109). The nether world is a carnival world in its gathering of all the people.

This universal aspect of the nether world overlaps the image of the carnival square, originally the market place where everyone gathered for the carnival celebration. The carnival square and its other literary counterparts are marked by openness: they are the setting for the encounters of all kinds of people: “The main arena for the carnival performances was the square and the adjoining streets . . . the central area could only be the square, for by its very idea carnival belongs to the whole people, it is universal, everyone must take part in its familiar contact. The square was symbolic of the whole people. . . . In carnivalized literature the square, as the setting of the plot’s action, becomes bilevelled and ambivalent: it is as if, through the actual square, one could see the carnival square, the scene of free, familiar contact and of crownings and discrownings

354 Evelyn H. Zepp

carried out by the whole people. Other places of action . . . if they can in any way be the scene of meetings and contacts of diverse people - streets, taverns, roads, baths, the decks of ships, etc. - take on the additional significance of the carnival square” (Dostoevsky, pp. 105-6).

The threshold image arises similarly from the nature of carnival. Carnival refuses all completion or finalization; its temporal representation is thus the moment of uncompleted transition (such as found in the image of pregnant death, see Dostoevsky, p. 140ff). The threshold is not a fixed point in space: it is a link, a two-hone place. It is the point of unfinalized change, thus the point of crisis: in the spirit of carnival symbolism, “Up, down, the stair, the threshold, the foyer, and the landing acquire the meaning of ‘a point’ in which crisis, radical change, or an unexpected turn of fate takes place, where decisions are taken, where demarcation lines are crossed, where people are renewed or perish” (Dostoevsky, p. 142). By the same kind of symbolic extension functioning with the carnival square, the threshold can become “the foyer, the corridor, the landing, the stair, its steps, doors which open onto stairs, garden gates, and aside from this - the city: squares, streets, facades, taverns, dens, bridges, gutters” (Dostoevsky, pp. 142-43).

All of these aspects of ambivalent carnival space function in La Chute. Its world is universal, for every side of the ostensible fictional space is double. Greece, Paris, and Amsterdam function simultaneously as heaven, earth, and hell. Paradise appears in Clamence’s memory of Greece, through its purity and light: “Avant de nous prksenter dans les iles grecques, il faudrait nous laver longuement. L’air y est chaste, la mer et la jouissance claires” (Lu Chute, pp. 1525-26). The earth (and also the earthly paradise, before the “fall”) appear in Paris, where Clamence led an existence qualified as particularly “human” and material: “J’Ctais fait pour avoir un corps” (La Chute, p. 1490). Finally, and most importantly, Amsterdam and hell (or the nether world) co-exist in the same space.

In La Chute, hell itself is double. Clamence wishes to be a Satanic figure, a judge ruling over all the inmates of a Dantesque hell. His role ofpenitent is only a means of achieving a final superiority as judge. But a carnival hell is also at work, ironically undermining, “discrowning,” Clamence’s efforts. There are numerous images which reflect a vision of the nether world as carnival square, where all are equalized and “enter into familiar contact.” The important scenes of the action are the bar, the streets, the deck of a ship. Only in the final scene do we enter an enclosed room - an area of inner space. These images, particularly


the bar and the city streets, clearly recall the carnival square, since Camus describes them especially in terms of their ability to unite diverse peoples: “Son mCtier consiste i~ recevoir des marins de toutes les nationalitks dans ce bar d’Amsterdam” (La Chute, p. 1477); “une capitale d’eaux et de brumes . . . visitte par des hommes Venus du monde entier. J’ai install6 mon cabinet dans unbar du quartier des matelots. La clientkle des ports est diverse. Les pauvres ne vont pas dans les districts luxueux, tandis que les gens de qualit6 finissent toujours par Cchouer, une fois au moins, vous l’avez bien vu, dans les endroits ma1 famCs” (La Chute, p. 1547). This space clearly projects the levelling of all hierarchies and the reunion in equality of all peoples. The duality of the fictional space is one of the elements undercutting Clamence’s attempt to be superior. The space reflects a constant process of crowning-discrowning, as we shall see shortly. The dual space reflects the ironic tension of Clamence’s chosen new profession. Far from being able to move from being a penitent to being a judge, Clamence will be trapped in the constant presence of both possibilities, in a two-in-one existence. The hyphen (in the word “juge-penitent”) is not the indication of a path collapsing one into the other, but of the tension between the two which cannot be broken. Clamence is on a bridge, suspended between two possibilities, between the two levels of space, He is at a crisis point; he is on a threshold.

Threshold imagery abounds in La Chute. We can only mention the most important examples, The bridge is clearly a crisis point for Clamence; its threshold symbolism (picked up by the hyphen in “juge-pinitent”) is obvious and a central element in the text. Amsterdam’s position at the “extrCmit6 du continent” which is nevertheless “le centre des choses” (La Chute, p. 1483) makes it part of the threshold imagery. It too is a crisis point, on the border between existence and non-existence: “N’est-ce pas l’effacement universel, le nCant sensible aux yeux?” (La Chute, p. 1512). What is perhaps the ultimate threshold image rejoins the imagery of the nether world: “il les place dans les Limbes, une sorte de vestibule de son enfer. Nous sommes dans le vestibule, cher ami” (La Chute, p. 1518).

Thus, the image of hell, with the connected images of the carnival square and the threshold (with the implication of universality and crisis questions) synthesizes “the universalism of the medieval mystery play, which depicted the fate of the human race: paradise on earth, fall into sin, redemption” and the “universalism of the menippea, as a genre of ultimate philosophical questions” (Dostoevsky, p. 123). Clamence claims to be universal, to be like everyone, to speak for his “complices . . . le genre humain” (La Chute, p. 15 13) - although he

356 Evelyn H. Zepp

does so in order to rise above them, and to have the answer to the ultimate philosophical question, to fall and redemption, to human existence: “nous sommes tous coupables . . . un i un crucifiks, et toujours sans savoir. Nous le serions du moins, si moi, Clamence, je n’avais trouvt l’issue, la seule solution, la vtritt enfin” (La Chute, p. 1535). Of course, Clamence’s solution, his “truth,” is contrary to carnival’s, since all his efforts are directed at becoming superior, a t rising above others. This fact, however, is at the beginning of a whole process of discrownings, of “falls,” in which ambivalent space and “ultimate questions” come together.

All the other aspects of ambivalent space are reflected in the other material or spatial orientation of the text: that of up and down, horizontal and vertical. The question of rising or “falling” is intimately tied to what Bakhtin identifies as the most important carnival process, crowning and discrowning. The essence of the spirit of carnival is present in the ritual crowning and subsequent discrowning (stripping of the signs of glory and, usually, beating) of the carnival king: “The basis of the ritual performance of crowning and discrowning the king is the very core of the carnivalistic attitude to the world - the pathos of vicissitudes and changes, of death and renewal. Carnival is the festival of all-destroying and all- renewing time” (Dostoevsky, p. 102). The ritual crowning and discrowning is thus at the center of carnival ambivalence and carnival folk humor, of the essential “double-faced fullness of life” (Rabelais, p. 62). There cannot be discrowning alone (“pure negative satire”) nor crowning alone (“gay, fanciful, recreational drollery deprived of philosophic content” - RabeZais, p. 12). Although discrowning has tended to be foremost in literature, the suggestion of crowning must be present in truly carnivalized literature (compare the discussion of the plague image, the absurd, and reduced laughter).

In La Chute, crownings and discrownings take place on multiple levels - with Clamence, with the interlocutor, with the reader. We shall begin by examining the evident cases within the text itself.

The title of the work has all too often been read only within the framework of Christian symbolism. But, just as we have seen that there is a double vision of hell, so there are two possibilities of falling in the text. To the concept of fall linked with the question of redemption corresponds the carnival “fall.” It is the essence of the process of discrowning and is also its ultimate topographical representation - the concrete shifting from top to bottom. There are a number of incidents in the text which appear to be “falls” in the carnival sense rather than in the Christian.

AIbert Camus and the Popular Tradition 357

Clamence begins his recital of his days in Paris with a description of what is essentially a “crowned” state. His successful life has been not only a participa- tion in the “feast”: “J’allais de Ete en Ete. I1 m’arrivait de danser pendant des nuits, de plus en plus fou des Ctres et de la vie” (La Chute, p. 1490), but also a crowning by the festival crowd: “une joyeuse salutation s’tlevait vers moi” (La Chute, p. 1488); “La vie, ses Ctres et ses dons venaient au-devant de moi; j’acceptais ces hommages avec une bienveillante fiertt. En vtritt, A force d’&tre homme, avec tant de pltnitude et de simplicitt, je me trouvais un peu surhomme” (La Chute, p. 1490). Indeed, Clamence mentions numerous times that he reigned: “je rtgnais librement, dans une lumikre tdtnique” (La Chute, p. 1489).

This state is reversed by a process of discrowning in which two events stand out as most important. The first in the text is Clamence’s experience on the Pont des Arts (one of the threshold moments). At the moment in which he feels “un vaste sentiment de puissance” (La Chute, p. 1495), he is unseated by an outburst of carnival laughter: “ce rire n’avait rien de mysttrieux, c’itait un bon rire, naturel, presque amical, qui remettait Ies choses enplace” (La Chute, p. 1495, our italics). This is indeed carnival laughter since it upsets official seriousness (Clamence’s claim to power) and its one-sided truth.

The second experience is even more clearly a carnival discrowning. It is the confrontation Clamence has with a motorcyclist in the midst of a Parisian traffic jam (the first of two memories preceding the important memory of the night the woman jumped off the bridge). (We may note in passing to what extent Camus’s use of the modern element of the Parisian traffic jam as a means of discrowning is comic). Clamence is stripped of his position by the crowd, and even subjected to the typical blows of discrowning: “Mais j’ktais A peine sur la chausste que, de la foule qui commenCait A s’assembler, un homme sortit, se prtcipita sur moi, vint m’assurer que j’ttais le dernier des derniers . . . je r e p s un coup violent sur l’oreille. . . . Je m’ttais laisst battre sans rtpondre. . . . Je me revoyais . . . SOUS

les regards ironiques d’une foule d’autant plus ravie que je portais, je m’en souviens, un costume bleu trks tltgant. . . . Je m’ttais en somme dtgonflt publiquement” (La Chute, pp. 1502-3).

Clamence’s subsequent “fall” from his successful place in Parisian society is a continuation of this process of discrowning by the crowd: ‘‘je me sentais vulntrable, et livrt 8 l’accusation publique. Mes semblables cessaient d’stre 8 mes yeux l’auditoire respectueux dont j’avais I’habitude. Le cercle dont j’Ctais le centre se brisait. . . . Oui, ils Ctaient 18, comme avant, mais ils riaient. . . . J’eus

358 Evelyn H. Zepp

mZme l’impression, B cette tpoque, qu’on me faisait des crocs-en-jambe. Deux ou trois fois, en effet, je butai, sans raison, en entrant dans des endroits publics. Une fois mi.me, je m’ttalai” (La Chute, p. 1515).

This discrowning is not final, however. Crownings and discrownings take place at other levels. One of these, the crowning of a new pope in the prisoner of war camp, illustrates Clamence’s distance from the carnival spirit, and thus builds the case for his ultimate discrowning, the one to be carried out by the reader. More than any other, his crowning as pope seems at the outset to be within the true carnival spirit: it presupposes a community of the people: “I1 nous dtclarait qu’il fallait un nouveau pape qui vtcat parmi les malheureux, au lieu de prier sur un tr6ne . . . un homme complet, avec ses dtfauts et ses vertus . , . [qui] acceptit de maintenir vivante, en lui et chez les autres, la communautt de nos souffrances” (La Chute, p. 1540), and a reversal of official procedures and hierarchy: the one chosen is the one with “le plus de faiblesses” (La Chute, p. 1540). But Clamence is unable to maintain the carnival spirit and destroys the carnival equality as he drinks the water of a dying comrade.20 As Bakhtin demonstrates in Rabelais and his World, those who will not enter into the carnival spirit are subject to beatings, dismemberment, and death at the hand of the people. All of Clamence’s efforts to regain his “kingdom,” to place himself outside the body of the people - to maintain the official world - lead to discrownings. At the end, he envisages his death in front of the people: “on me dtcapiterait, par exemple. . . . Au-dessus du peuple assemblt, vous klbveriez alors ma tZte encore fraiche, pour qu’ils s’y reconnaissent et qu’B nouveau je les domine” (La Chute, p. 1551).

This need, even at the moment of death, to be superior parallels Clamence’s assertion at the end of the text that “Je rtgne enfin, mais pour toujours. J’ai encore trouvC un sommet. . . . J’attendrai donc vos hommages ?i Mexico-City, aussi longtemps qu’il le faudra. . . . Je tr8ne parmi mes vilains anges, 2 la cime du ciel hollandais, je regarde monter vers moi, sortant des brumes et de l’eau, la multitude du jugernent dernier” (La Chute, pp. 1548-49). Clamence epitomizes the “official” world which insists on hierarchy and moral and temporal absolutes (the “last judgment”). Thus, in the carnival world, this “final” crowning must invoke a subsequent discrowning, present in the response (the laughter) of the interlocutor: “Ne riez pas! Oui, vous &tes un client difficile” (La Chute, p. 1548). The interlocutor, repeating the experience of the Pont des Arts, discrowns Clamence. He begins the process of distancing from Clamence which this time extends to the reader. It should not be forgotten that Clamence’s discrowning


process has been aimed not only at the interlocutor (to make him judge himself), but at everyone: “Avec cela, je fabrique un portrait qui est celui de tous et de personne. Un masque, en somme, assez semblable B ceux du carnaval, B la fois fidkles et simplifiks. . . . Mais, du m2me coup, le portrait que je tends B mes contemporains devient un miroir” (La Chute, p. 1547). The reader is also a target for Clamence. However, when the reader recognizes Clamence’s “carnival mask,” he recognizes the carnival process and its application to Clamence: the co-presence of reality and illusion, the king and the fool, the constant transformations carried out by time. The reader begins to separate himself from Clamence and his discrowning attempt, and begins to discrown Clamence in turn. When, at the very end of the text, the reader learns that the interlocutor is also a lawyer, “de la m2me race” (La Chute, p. 1551) as Clamence, and thus no longer the everyman, the substitute for the reader he has been all along, the reader is further distanced from Clamence’s attempted discrowning process of others (and self-crowning) as he is separated from both characters. Clamence may indeed achieve his purpose: “je vous provoque B vous juger vous-m2me” (La Chute, p. 1548), but the final moments of the text undercut this purpose. The multi-level carnival situation created prevents the arresting of the temporal progression of crownings and discrownings; Clamence cannot achieve a static position in the presence of the “carnivalized” reader. Clamence will, in turn, be judged and discrowned once again. In the face of Clamence’s need for hierarchical stasis, the text asserts the carnival vision of continuous change, of life as a cycle.

Finally, it will be recognized to what extent this movement of crowning and discrowning is tied to the processes of communication taking place - between Clamence and the interlocutor, Clamence and himself (as narrator and character), the text and the reader, etc., and in particular to the dialogue form. In the inside-out logic of carnival and the creation of a discrowning double, the word itself becomes two-fold, ambivalent; it “crowns” (asserts) itself and “discrowns” (negates) the word of the other: “Positive and negative elements are, of course, inherent in every word of a living speech. There are no indifferent, neutral words; there can only be artificially neutralized words. In the most ancient forms of speech the merging of praise and abuse, that is, a duality of tone, is characteristic. In the subsequent development this duality of tone subsists; it acquires a new meaning in the nonofficial, familiar, and humorous popular spheres” (Rabelais, p. 432). In dialogue (and other similar forms), “the word has a double-directedness - it is directed both toward the object of speech,

360 Evelyn H. Zepp

like an ordinary word, and toward another word, toward another person’s speech” (Dostoevsky, p. 1 5 3 ) . This relationship pertains, in La Chute, to the dialogue and the dialogical process between Clamence and the interlocutor, between the author and his character, between Clamence as narrator and as character, and between the text and the reader. An analysis of this dialogical process, of the actual relationship of word to word in La Chute, that is, of the carnival nature of the word in La Chute, is more complex than can be handled within the limits of this study, however.*l

Thus, we have seen to what extent the “carnival logic of an impostor’s elevation, his comical discrowning by the whole folk on the square, and his downward fall” (Dostoevsky, p. 141) coincides with both the movement and the space of La Chute. It remains only to recognize how this process carries the text beyond the limits of the simple narrative ricit. ,This carnival process “is not an abstract meaning, but rather a living attitude to the world, expressed in the experienced and play-acted concretely sensuous form of the ritual performance” (Dostoevsky, p. 102). Carnivalized literature, retaining the element of ritual performance, involves the reader on a level of concreteness not available in traditional literature. This study began with a consideration of Camus’s comments on the theater. We are now in a position to assert that his (carnival) sense of the theater does indeed pervade his fiction. Spatially, be it in the courtroom, the public square, the bar, or the streets, Camus’s fiction unrolls in the space of carnival drama. The reader, forced in the case of La Chute, for example, to supply the responses missing in the implied dialogue, becomes not a spectator but aparticipant in the carnival process and spirit. He lives the carnival vision of life. In this sense theater, or the spectacle, overflows its limits in Camus and becomes, most notably in La Chute, a structuring principle of his fiction in the deepest sense. Without recognition of these carnival elements, one can never fully appreciate or understand Camus.

NOTES

1. “La deuxikme vie d’Albert Camus: les paradoxes d’une ‘aventure singulikre de notre culture”’ in Albert Camus 1980: Secondlnternational Conference on Albert Camus, ed. Raymond Gay-Croisier (Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 1980), pp. 277-287.

2. Albert Camus, L’Envers et f’endroit in Essais (Paris: Gallimard, 1965), p. 24, 3 . John Cruickshank, AIbert Camus and the Literature of Revolt (New York: Oxford

University Press, 1960), p. 226 [quoted from Germaine Brte, “Introduction to Albert Camus,” French Studies, 4 (January 1950), p. 341.


4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14. 15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais andHis World, trans. Helene Iswolsky (Cambridge: M. I. T. Press, 1968), p. 9. Further references will be indicated in the text as Rabelais. Albert Camus, “Pourquoi je fais du thtiitre?,” in Thtdtre, Rtcits, Nouvelles (Paris: Gallimard, 1962), pp. 1723-24. Further references will be indicated in the text as Thidtre. Mikhail Bakhtin, Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics. trans. R. W. Rotsel (Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1973), p. 108. Further references will be indicated in the text as Dostoevsky. It is true that Camus does not carry the material bodily principle of the grotesque to its fullest realization - there is little of the “scatological” in his work. This does not prevent, however, a true principle of “degradation” from functioning, as Bakhtin demonstrates in his analysis of Dostoevsky. Albert Camus, L’Etranger in Thtdtre, Rtcits, Nouvelles, p. 1172. Further references will be indicated in the text as L’Etranger. See, for example, W. M. Frohock, “Camus: Image, Influence and Sensibility,” Yale French Studies, 4 (Fall-Winter 1949), pp. 91-99. “Ethics and Aesthetics in The Stranger” in Camus, ed. Germaine Brte (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1962), pp. 122-3 1. Albert Camus, La Peste in Thtdtre, Rtcits, Nouvelles, p. 1394. Further references will be indicated in the text as La Peste. Even the narration, when it is first person, is performed through the collective nous. This question will be examined in another study. This second world is also that of the prison. Bakhtin points out to what extent prison functions as a carnival nether world (through the reunion of all kinds of men, the loss of hierarchy, etc. - see Dostoevsky, p. 144). The prison image is present in all three of Camus’s works of fiction: overtly in L’Etranger and La Peste (see the epigraph, for example), and in La Chute most noticeably in the image of the malconfort. Albert Camus, Noces in Essais, pp. 57-58. “une dyade . . . dont les deux termes Ctant en communication entre eux, constituent un systtme de code.” Julia Kristeva, “Le Mot, le dialogue, et le roman” in SPmeiotikP (Paris: Seuil, 1969), p. 156. Albert Camus, Le Mythe de Sisyphe in Essais, p. 121. Further references will be indicated in the text as Mythe. “A Grain of Salt,” Yale French Studies, 25 (Spring 1960), pp. 41-43; p. 42. Further references will be indicated in the text as BrCe. The two-in-one process can be demonstrated to be the essence of Camus’s practice in his fiction, in the aesthetic fusion of logical opposites. We cannot fully develop the matter here, but it should appear to what extent this procedure reflects carnival ambivalence. (For a fuller discussion of this carnival aesthetic see Evelyn Zepp, “The Aesthetics of the Absurd Novel: Camus and Kafka,” Diss. Cornell University, 1973.) Albert Camus, La Chute in Thtdtre, Rtcits, Nouvelles, p. 1495. Further references will be indicated in the text as La Chute. If Clamence discrowns the official church through this carnival reversal (which is repeated in other ways; through his “sacrements” of menace, dishonor, and the police, Clamence tells us “je pr&che dans mon tglise de Mexico-City, j’invite le bon peuple i se soumettre” - L a Chute, p. 1546), his subsequent attempt to impose a new hierarchy not only invites, but necessitates another discrowning - that of Clamence himself.

362 Evelyn H. Zepp

21. This author has published a preliminary study of the problem: “Dialogizing the Monologue: The Creation of the ‘Double-voiced‘ Word in La Chute,” Symposium 35 (Winter 1981-82), 357-71.

Evelyn H. Zepp. Born 1947. Ph. D. Associate Professor of French, University of Wisconsin-Parkside. Has published articles on Albert Camus and Julia Kristeva.

albert camus and the popular tradition

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