The Confessions

“I believe that no individual of our species was naturally more free from vanity than myself. I raised myself by fits and starts to lofty flights, but immediately fell down again into my natural languor. My liveliest desire was to be loved by all who came near me.”

By claiming that no one is freer from vanity than himself, Rousseau exemplifies the vanity he rejects. Throughout Confessions, Rousseau makes sweeping claims about his own humility, placing himself on a pedestal above all others.

“I am a man of very strong passions, and, while I am stirred by them, nothing can equal my impetuosity; I forget all discretion, all feelings of respect, fear and decency; I am cynical, impudent, violent and fearless; no feeling of shame keeps me back, no danger frightens me; with the exception of the single object which occupies my thoughts, the universe is nothing to me. But all this lasts only for a moment, and the following moment plunges me into complete annihilation.”

Throughout his memoir, Rousseau embodies dualities, often despising the very qualities he possesses. In this passage, he professes that he is without fear and full of aggression, then quickly pivots and claims to be timid and shy.

“My childhood was not that of a child; I always felt and thought as a man. It was only when I grew up that I re-entered the class of ordinary individuals; as a child I did not belong to it. The reader will laugh to find me modestly representing myself as a prodigy. So be it; but when he has laughed sufficiently, let him find a child who, in his sixth year, is so attracted, interested and carried away by romances as to shed hot tears over them; then I shall feel that my vanity is ridiculous, and will confess that I am wrong.”

Rousseau makes many sweeping and self-aggrandizing statements about his temperament and intelligence. In this example, Rousseau claims he always had the mental capacity of an adult, despite evidence of his own mistakes and childish thinking.

“In my alternating tastes and ideas, I had always been too high or too low—Achilles or Thersites: now a hero, now a good-for-nothing.”

Rousseau professes to encompass many dualities. He lays claim to every trait and characteristic. This gluttony of attributes is a direct result of his vanity; he must be the extreme in all things. He feels a keen desire to be the most intelligent, the most foolish, the vainest, and the humblest.

“I have studied mankind, and believe that I am a fairly shrewd observer; nevertheless, I cannot see clearly anything of all that I perceive; I only see clearly what I remember, and only show intelligence in my recollections. Of all that is said, of all that is done, of all that goes on in my presence, I feel nothing, I see through nothing.”

This quotation provides another example of Rousseau’s unreliability as a narrator and contributes to the theme of “Hypocrisy and Deception.” While he maintains a passion for the truth and a disdain for those who perpetuate hypocrisy, he admits that his own grasp on the truth is shadowed by his personal perception.

“My readers will not fail to laugh at my love adventures, and to remark that, after lengthy preliminaries, even those which made greatest progress, end in a kiss of the hand. Oh, my readers, do not be mistaken! I have, perhaps, had greater enjoyment in my amours which have ended in a simple kiss of the hand, than you will ever have in yours, which, at least, have begun with that!”

This quotation adds to the theme of Self-Love, Self-Justification, and Vanity. Rousseau claims that his loves—even ones directed toward casual acquaintances fleetingly mentioned—is stronger than any his readers have experienced.

“The uncertainty of the future has always made me look upon plans, which need considerable time to carry them out, as decoys for fools. I indulge in hopes like others, provided it costs me nothing to support them; but if they require continued attention, I have done with it. The least trifling pleasure which is within my reach tempts me more than the joys of Paradise.”

Rousseau speaks to the theme of Abandonment and Running Away. Throughout the book, he is never satisfied in his position—except when he is near Madame de Warens. He is offered multiple lucrative jobs but abandons them when he meets an interesting person or perceives that something better may be on the horizon.

“I have never thought so much, existed so much, lived so much, been so much myself, if I may venture to use that phrase, as in the journeys which I have made alone and on foot. There is something in walking which animates and enlivens my ideas. I can scarcely think when I remain still; my body must be in motion to make my mind active. The sight of the country, a succession of pleasant views, the open air, a good appetite, the sound health which walking gives me, the free life of the inns, the absence of all that reminds me of my condition—all this sets my soul free, gives me greater boldness of thought, throws me, so to speak, into the immensity of things, so that I can combine, select, and appropriate them at pleasure, without fear or restraint.”

After each fresh abandonment or during each new journey, Rousseau describes his pleasures in traveling through the countryside. He often recalls these as his happiest moments in life. This provides the first indication of his abandonment of the reason of the Enlightenment and the influence he had on Romanticism, as found in the theme Rationalism versus Romanticism.

“I dispose of Nature in its entirety as its lord and master; my heart, roaming from object to object, mingles and identifies itself with those which soothe it, wraps itself up in charming fancies, and is intoxicated with delicious sensations.”

Rousseau believes that civilization disconnected humanity from its natural self, including the joy that is found from living in a natural state. This speaks to the theme of Rationalism v. Romanticism.

“My obstinate nature is unable to bow to facts. It cannot beautify, it must create. Realities appear to it nothing more than they are; it can only embellish the objects of imagination. If I wish to depict the spring, it must be in winter; if I wish to describe a beautiful landscape, I must be surrounded by walls; and I have said a hundred times that, if I were ever imprisoned in the Bastille, I should draw the picture of Liberty.”

Rousseau provides more evidence of his position as an unreliable narrator. His obsession with escape and beauty makes him unable to accurately portray the truth.

“Having so long called her mamma, having enjoyed with her the intimacy of a son, I had become accustomed to look upon myself as one. I believe that this was really the cause of the little eagerness I felt to possess her, although she was so dear to me.”

Rousseau’s relationship with Madame de Warens was complex, intermingling feelings of son/mother and sexual desire. He viewed sex with a woman as possession, while Warens saw sex as duty and obligation, separate from pleasure or desire.

“Here begins the brief happiness of my life; here approach the peaceful, but rapid moments which have given me the right to say, I have lived.”

When Rousseau resided with Warrens in the countryside on their summer holidays, he felt that he was living for the first time. His connection with nature brought him clarity, and he felt more settled than he had at any other point in his life.

“I got up at sunrise, and was happy; I walked, and was happy; I saw mamma, and was happy; I left her, and was happy; I roamed the forests and hills, I wandered in the valleys, I read, I did nothing, I worked in the garden, I picked the fruit, I helped in the work of the house, and happiness followed me everywhere—happiness, which could not be referred to any definite object, but dwelt entirely within myself, and which never left me for a single instant.”

Rousseau proposes that humanity living in a natural state is the epitome of self-love. His return to this state while living in the countryside with Warens introduces the idea of the connection between existing in the natural world and true happiness and satisfaction.

“I can certainly say that I never began to live, until I looked upon myself as a dead man.”

Rousseau became ill after ingesting orpiment. He was certain that he was in his final days, and this belief transformed his outlook on life. He found clarity in his desires and pursuits.

“With mamma, my pleasure was always disturbed by a feeling of sadness, by a secret feeling of oppression at the heart, which I found difficult to overcome. Instead of congratulating myself upon possessing her, I reproached myself with degrading her.”

Rousseau’s relationship with Warens was complex, and his feelings for her were intermingled with his view of her as a mother figure. He could not fully enjoy his physical relationship with her because of his own guilt and sadness at entering an unnatural intimacy with her.

“I have only one faithful guide upon which I can depend; the chain of the feelings which have marked the development of my being, and which will remind of the succession of events, which have been either the cause or the effect of these feelings.”

Romanticism emphasizes feeling over reason. Here, Rousseau suggests that feeling and emotion can serve as a guide that will navigate the individual on the course of right action.

“Although I was greatly indebted to all these worthy people, I afterwards neglected them all, not certainly from ingratitude, but owing to my conquerable idleness, which has often made me appear ungrateful.”

Rousseau repeatedly borrows money from strangers and enters into short-lived relationships and partnerships. He justifies all of his own actions as products of his esteemed character, contributing to the theme Self-Love, Self-Justification, and Vanity. 

“But is it possible that my warm-heartedness, lively sensibility, readiness to form attachments, the powerful hold which they exercise over me, the cruel heartbreakings I experience when forced to break them off, my natural goodwill towards all my fellow-creatures, my ardent love of the great, the true, the beautiful, and the just; my horror of evil of every kind, my utter inability to hate or injure, or even to think of it; the sweet and lively emotion which I feel at the sight of all that is virtuous, generous, and amiable; is it possible, I ask, that all these can ever agree in the same heart with the depravity which, without the least scruple, tramples underfoot the sweetness of obligations? No!”

In this passage, Rousseau asserts that his decision to leave his children with the state was born out of his own goodwill. He assures his readers that this act exhibits a great fatherly instinct and is rooted in purity and generosity. This attitude contributes to the theme of Self-Love, Self-Justification, and Vanity.

“I have promised my confession, not my justification; therefore I say no more on this point. It is my duty to be true; the reader’s to be just. I shall never ask more from him than that.”

Although he asserts that he is not attempting a justification, most of what Rousseau writes in the preceding pages of this quotation attempts to justify the abandonment of his children. His role as an unreliable narrator is revealed through his total inability examine his own actions with objectivity.

“The remainder of the day, I buried myself in the forest, where I sought and found the picture of those primitive times, of which I boldly sketched the history. I demolished the painful lies of mankind; I dared to expose their nature in all its nakedness, to follow the progress of time and of the things which have distinguished this nature; and, comparing the man, as man has made him, with the natural man, I showed him, in his pretended perfection, the true source of his misery.”

A key component of Rousseau’s philosophy is the idea that when humanity separated from its natural state, it lost morality and happiness. Rousseau suggests, based upon his own predilection for nature and the countryside, that returning to this natural state would allow humanity to reconnect with the better part of itself.

“If, with the assistance of the information afforded, any child had been presented to me as mine, the doubt, whether it really was so, or whether another had been substituted for it, would have tormented by heart with uncertainty, and I should not have enjoyed in all its charm the true feeling of nature, which, in order to be kept alive, must be kept up by constant familiarity at least during infancy. The continued absence of a child whom one does not yet know, weakens and at last utterly destroys the feelings of a parent; it is impossible to love a child which has been put out to nurse as much as one which is brought up at home.”

Here, Rousseau reveals his own nature. He claims it is impossible to love one’s own child if one has not been constantly in contact with it. He is unconcerned that the orphanage has not kept careful records and is relieved when his friend is unable to adopt one of his children.

“The unsettled condition of the rest of my life has not left events time to arrange themselves in succession in my head. They have been too numerous, too mixed up, too disagreeable to be able to be related without confusion. The only strong impression which they have left upon my mind is that of the horrible mystery in which their causes are enveloped, and of the deplorable condition to which they have reduced me.”

The author further proves his unreliability as a narrator. Rousseau explains that because the final chapters are in his recent memory, he is unable to piece events together in a coherent manner.

“Accordingly, I in a measure took leave of my generation and my contemporaries, and said farewell to the world, by confining myself within this island for the remainder of my days; for such was my resolution, and it was there that I hoped at last to be able to carry out the grand scheme of a life of idleness, to which I Had hitherto devoted in vain all the little energy which Heaven had bestowed upon me.”

In the theme Abandonment and Running Away, each new trouble or complication places Rousseau on the road of travel. He longs for retirement and often seeks a place of quiet refuge. However, these respites are short-lived, and Rousseau is always compelled once more to acquit himself.