Trevor Leon
Professor Cody
English 1A
11/15/2012
The Fall While reading “The Fall” a whole new ideology of why people do particular acts was introduced to me. “The Fall” By Albert Camus is a journal of conversations that take place in a bar in Amsterdam, Mexico city to be specific, between the reader and a unique man, Jean Baptiste. Once acquainted with Mr. Baptiste he makes no hesitation to begin to unfold his life story. While doing so he goes into interesting points, and stories, but what is the point of all this talk? Being a well-educated man who studied law, Jean Baptiste uses his high intellectual thought processes to decipher who he talks to. Primarily Baptiste uses every conversation he holds to help glorify himself. Showing a front that he is just like you in many ways, allowing you to feel comfortable and suddenly you begin to agree with small topics and points he makes. Here the Baptiste pulls the reader into a mutual feeling of understanding, and then begins to present elements of his personality. Baptiste reviles how he enjoys helping those in need, for example helping someone across the street, or giving directions to those lost. These actions might seem only worth of glorification, or at least that’s what Baptiste wants you to think. What must be examined is the motive behind these acts. Is Baptiste really helping those in need for the good of others, or is he really using these actions for his own self esteem. Should Jean Baptiste really be condemned for his deeds rather than applauded. I feel the answer lies in one particular story that Baptiste tells about an event that forever changed his life. After this event Baptiste takes a new state of mind that shows how he and all beings are really double. Going a little further back before this event took place Jean Baptiste use to be a criminal defended, possibly this is where some of his ideas of judgment rooted from. The second time meeting with Jean Baptiste he tells of how he used to be a lawyer in Paris. When talking about Baptiste’s career in Paris he reviles some unique clues to his true self. To begin Jean Baptiste would have to find a way to justify those that he defended. As for a manufacturer that had murdered his wife, Baptiste looked a little deeper into his motive and concluded that the man couldn’t stand being wrong. See the manufacture had deceived his wife, “Eventually, living in the wrong became unbearable to him.” (Camus 18) He couldn’t continue to deceive her so eventually he “Killed her.” (Camus 18). This is the type of thinking Baptiste embraced to defend and live with those that he defended. Baptiste admits “But I even took up their defense, on the sole condition that they should be noble murders, as others are noble savages. The very manner in which I conducted that defense gave me great satisfactions.” (Camus 19). This Example of Baptiste shows how he chooses to judge those who truly deserve nothing but being condemned, yet he chooses to seek reason in ones crimes, but why. Why does Baptiste choose this irrational ideology for criminals? The answer is simple. He chooses this mind set solely for himself, to better cope with his own being. For Baptiste he won’t allow himself to be seen in the wrong, he cares about his image too much. Similar to how he views criminals, Baptiste helps others for himself. At the sight of a bind person trying to cross the street he would “Rush forwards, sometimes only a second ahead of another charitable hand already outstretched.” (Camus 20) This might seem to be only good, and worth praise, but Baptiste motives are not as glorious. He helps those in need to make himself feel better. He races to help out of his own account of selfishness. But do all humans choose to do good deeds for them self? Does anyone help another for the pure reason of being a helping hand? This is what Baptiste tries to convince us of, that everyone really only helps for their own account. I see different. I believe that there is
