An Interpretation Of The Multiple Themes In The Fall

Albert Camus(1913-1960),French existentialist philosopher,writer and playwright,won the Nobel prize for literature in 1957,and is one of the youngest Nobel prize winners in the world until now.His philosophical essays----The Myth of Sisyphus(1942)and The Rebel(1951),the short stories The Stranger(1942),The Fall(1956),and the novel The Plague(1947)have become the classics in the twentieth Century literary works.The Fall was the last novel published by Camus in his life,with rich connotation and high research value,which has been considered by Sartre to be "may be the most beautiful and the least understood work of Camus".At present,the academic research on the theme in The Fall is insufficient,for one has hardly approached the multiple themes from religious,philosophical and psychological aspects in papers or dissertations.Therefore,this paper,based on the theories and methods of Existentialism,Comparative Literature,Psychological Criticism,Narrative Criticism and Social-historical Criticism,interprets the theme of the confession and trial,the theme of absurdity and revolting,the theme of psychological disease and self-cure,and discusses the reasons for the formation of multiple themes in The Fall from social as well as individual aspects.Finally,this article also compares The Fall with the themes of Camus's other novels and plays,and analyzes the tension of the multiple themes,so as to discover the importance of interpreting the multiple themes of The Fall.This paper consists of three parts,including introduction,the main body,and the conclusion,with the main part divided into four chapters.The introductory part is developed into three aspects:the reasons for choosing the title,the research status at home and abroad,the significance of the topic and the research methods.In the first chapter,the theme of confession and trial will be analyzed on the basis of the dual career as judge-penitent of the protagonis "I",the confession and the venue of"I" and its artistic expression.On the one hand,"I" am self-appointed as the judge of the moral court,trying to judge the sin and evil of myself and society.On the other hand,"I"am also a self-rescued penitent,who carries out self-confession by dialogical monologue.Degenerate,repentance and trial of "I" are closely related to the two cities of Paris and Amsterdam.The bridge and water which are closely related to the events of women's falling into water have been employed by Camus to connect Paris and Amsterdam,and,moreover,by employing the archetype in the Bible and the rhetorical devices of irony and metaphor,the author indicates that the confession and trial of "I" will be a circle,and"I" can never escape from falling into the abyss.The second chapter analyzes the theme of absurdity and revolting.Camus depicts the absurdity reflected in the two aspects of social evil and human alienation.The Fall also shows the paradoxical rebellion of "I",which means not only the metaphysical rebellion of challenging God's authority and revealing the absurd truth of the world,but also the rebellion of revealing the hypocrisy of itself and expressing the human nature of the true "self".The third chapter discusses the theme of psychological illness and self-rescue in The Fall.This chapter will analyze the abnormal mental world of the protagonist in The Fall.In the first section,we analyze various symptoms of mental illness of "I",based on abnormal psychology,and then from the psychological and social factors to explore the causes of its formation.Finally,from the two aspects of social healing and self-rescue,this paper analyzes the way of rescue for "me" to get rid of the pain of mental illness.However,all the methods "I" tried could only temporarily relieve the pain or cover the problem,and did not touch the crucial cause of the "I" illness,so that "I" could never achieve desired results.The fourth chapter explores the causes of the multiple themes of The Fall from social and individual aspects.The main social reasons are war,violence and terror,the doomsday mentality and social psychological diseases,along with the sense of responsibility and mission of the French existentialist writers in the twentieth Century.Personal reasons include the debate between Camus and Sartre's,the debauchery experience of Camus and his atheist's religious complex.The concluding part compares the multiple themes of The Fall with those of Camus's other novels and plays,and then analyzes the tension of the multiple themes of The Fall,so as to explore the significance of interpreting the multiple theme The Fall.