The Fall

Clamence and his cher ami go for a walk the next evening. Clamence shares how the strange laughter made him avoid the Paris quays. He fell into a depression and began taking stimulants to treat it. Clamence comments on the beauty of Amsterdam’s canals and recalls visiting Sicily. He likes islands because it is easier to dominate them.

The two pass by a house that used to belong to an enslaver. The old sign outside the building features the carved heads of enslaved African people. Clamence loves slavery and wishes the enslavers of today could boast about owning enslaved people. Clamence believes slavery is a necessity for humans. He explains that the pecking order between husband and wife, wife and child, and child and dog, allows each person to have someone “below” them to abuse. Clamence values power and domination more than anything. He avoids situations that make him powerless, such as being the only white person in a room with people of color. Slavery is an inevitability to him.

Clamence reflects on his life in Paris. He was vain and self-centered, and nothing mattered to him at that time. He watched life go by and only interacted with life when circumstances made him do so. He lived only on the “surface” (50). Clamence’s passivity made his memory slip, and he forgot the evening that startled him.

He recounts that a traffic incident jogged his memory. While stuck in traffic, a motorcycle in front of him stalled when the light turned green. Drivers began honking at the motorcyclist, and Clamence asked the man to move his bike off the road. The man was flustered and frustrated and told Clamence to go to hell. Clamence got out of his car, intending to physically assault the man, but a bystander stopped Clamence from doing so. The motorcyclist fixed his bike, punched Clamence, and rode off. Clamence was dazed and humiliated. He wandered away, leaving his car in traffic before realizing what he had done and hurried back to his car. The man who intervened called him a “poor dope” (53). Clamence feels that this event shattered his esteemed public image. In Paris, his privileged life allowed him to dominate others, and the traffic incident made it impossible for him to keep that self-image. The incident made him realize he had a darker desire: He wanted to oppress and brutalize anybody beneath him.

Clamence recounts a woman he had an affair with. Clamence has never loved a woman and considers their feelings to be tools of manipulation. Clamence used women to add to his image as a successful man and indulge his own physical desires; he did not care about their pleasure. Clamence likens loving women to a game and gambling. Clamence seduced an unnamed woman, and the two had sex. It was a terrible experience, and the woman told others about it. Clamence was devastated by the blow to his image and tried to seduce her again. He succeeded and treated her terribly; the text suggests he physically abused her. Once the woman spoke up, Clamence disappeared from her life.

Clamence reflects on his relationships with women and declares that he needs every person on earth to bend to his whim. This is the only way he can be happy. Clamence is severely distressed by the thought of others having lives that do not involve him. Clamence asks his cher ami to walk him home because he is very tired. Along the way, Clamence confesses what actually happened on the evening he heard the strange laughter. While walking home after an affair, he watched a young woman throw herself into the river. He listened to her drown and walked away, telling himself that he couldn’t have helped her. He told nobody that he witnessed her death.