Albert Camus's Philosophy of Communication: Making Sense in an A ...

and stories that guide a people are ignored for the power of individual pathos” (Arnett, “Therapeutic” 150). When the long-held stories are discarded and replaced by stories of personal feelings and emotions, one is inadvertently invited into a state of existential homelessness. Not only is Clamence working from such a position, but through his invitation for the interlocutor’s confession, he invites the other into this state, as well.

Existential homelessness is a real experience for many living in the midst of absurdity. As Holba suggested, “[e]xistential homelessness is pervasive in the human condition” (Philosophical Leisure 46). This experience is often found when one lacks a common center for conversation, fails to engage in dialogue, blurs the distinction between the private and public spheres, and resists feeling genuine responsibility for another human being. Albert Camus’s novel The Fall provides a fictional account of existential homelessness and presents a vivid image of what this might look like in an age of absurdity.

The Fall

The Fall was first published in 1956; it was the last novel Camus completed and published during his lifetime. Written in six unnumbered sections, The Fall is told as a monologue by the central character, Jean-Baptiste Clamence, who considers himself a “judge-penitent” and invites his conversation partner (listener) and the reader to interact with his lengthy confession as he tells his story.

Narrative

In the first section, Clamence begins his relationship with a visitor to a bar in Amsterdam by offering to serve as an interpreter. As the conversation continues, Clamence states, “I am talkative, alas, and make friends easily. Although I know how to keep my distance, I seize any and every opportunity” (5). He has a rather bleak outlook on his contemporaries: “A single sentence will suffice for modern man: he fornicated and read the papers. After that vigorous definition, the subject will be, if I may say so, exhausted” (6–7). Clamence reveals the first bit of personal