An Analysis of Albert Camus' Work: an aphoristic introduction
Albert Camus was born in Algeria. The writer and philosopher would not live enough time to be considered a pied-noir for, from the time he was born till the time of his death, in 1960, he would only come to know his homeland as a realm under the domain of the French Colonial Empire.
The understanding of Camus' point of view upon the colonialist beingness of the land of the First Man sunders several critics, for some perceive him as yet another supporter of a French Algeria while others choose to regard him as introducing a form of hybridity that resembles former leader of the Front National de Libération Kanak et Socialiste (FNLKS) Jean-Marie Tjibaou's perspective, as stated by Raylene Ramsay in her article "Colonial/Postcolonial Hybridity in Le Premier Homme and Jean-Marie Tjibaou's First Man, Kanaké", on a pluralistic thus reconciled society.
Considering the exploration of the concept of Other(ness) throughout the reading of the author's (auto)biography, "Le Premier Homme", one might grasp Camus' perception of the tragedy that rapes the condition of being human and of the human being: l'exil and le royaume, which is to say the separation (or expulsion) and the (conquered) realm—and please do take notice that he does choose to join these notions with additive conjunction instead of placing them versus each other. This acquiesces with the sense of mutual destiny that both Camus and Tjibaou seemed to share, one that foreshadowed a future that fed on commonality and sharing—this also opens yet another discussion/analysis that delves deeper into his other works but I'll leave that to a later post.
What's interesting to observe in Camus' work is the presence of a two-faced Otherness that, for example, ends up defying Edward Said's thesis on his Orientalism, in which the Palestinian American political activist, and literary critic, proposes the confrontation of the concept of Other/ness through the perspective of a West that attempts to restructure and monopolise the East.
On the other hand, the French-Algerian philosopher aims towards a hybrid aspect of those same concepts when he, for example, highlights the Otherness that inhabits the sameness of the Arabs, which ends up creating a sort of strangeness within/towards Arab women. These human creatures of veiled features and unrecognisable faces portray an identity that shall not be made easy to be understood, hence the ability of the Self—that perceives them as the Other—of being both threatened and attracted by such singularity.
Withal, Camus focuses on writing a story that sets this Other out as a fraternal and present figure that counters the expected sense of fear and the idea of these two faces being mutually exclusive.
Likewise, in L'Étranger, the reader might perceive the presence of fear towards the Other which finds shelter under the notions of hierarchy and difference. In other words, fear towards the Otherness—the foule menaçante—is translated into a racist, sexist, and colonialist character that goes by the name of Raymond, a fellow French-Algerian. Such a character and the introduction of these specific themes seem to propose a state of inevitability when it comes down to the systematic violence that the meeting of such conjunctures is able to (re)generate.
Le Premier Homme: the monsterness within memory
On a side note concerning Le Premier Homme, for instance, Albert Camus introduces Jacques with a simple yet clear sentence: "Je vais raconter l'histoire d'un monstre.", immediately hauling the mind of the reader towards the subjects of fear and violence which seem to be inherent to any tale that speaks of monsters.
But one might ask what is the true essence of this so-called fear and violence? What gives way to its existence? And what do they, ultimately, foster? Moreover, what could concepts such as l'exil and le royaume have to do with what might be regarded then as that which not only plays a crucial role in the condition of the human being and of being human but also in the basic principle of a tale about monsters?
If one establishes a parallelism between Albert Camus' Jacques and Guy Debord's théorie de psychogéographie, for example—a theory that conveys that each individual's address in this world and within this society has a direct effect on said individual's character and behavioural patterns—it becomes possible to behold that the monster that Camus creates in 'Le Premier Homme' is one that springs from its social, linguistic, and spatial geographies (as is proposed by Lorenzo Giachetti on his article 'A Psychogeography of the Monstrous in Le Premier Homme'.) Nonetheless, it becomes just as evident that for the creation of this monster to be complete, that same creature must hold a conscience concerning their heritage—apropos of the use of the pronouns them/their as opposed to the use of the alternative, it/its, it was done and shall continue to be done throughout this review past careful consideration of what sparks a tenable, just expression of what is presumed to have been the author's intention when writing this work.
That being said, the reader might consider those three aspects to be essential in order to pro/create such a creature, which is to say one isn't born a monster; one becomes a monster. The individual whose transgressions end up leading them towards their condition of Otherness is being reminded of those same transgressions in perpetuum. Such is the reality of one Jacques Cormery who despite being no Frankenstein nor Caligula develops a contemptuous craving to learn. And what truly becomes fascinating to analyse is this concept around the idea that Other/ness might imply a monster/ness which subsequently may entail mad/ness which could link to a state of absurd/ness—for the media has been steadily feeding its audience with a conviction that even though one's madness doesn't always nor necessarily translate into a case of geniality, more often than not, a case of geniality translates into one of madness. And hand in hand with geniality goes knowledge. With knowledge, goes curiosity. And Jacques' curiosity grows from a desire to gather as many memories as possible from the father figure that poses as a form that shapes this character's view not only upon the world in which he's inserted but also upon the way in which he's (been) inserted into that same world. Once again, we might observe how a character's geographies play a vital role in shaping its personality.
To associate memory with monsterness comes as a direct result of contemplating the condition of being a monster as one that is bred and fed as opposed to the condition of being human that is undoubtedly established a priori as an inevitable fortuna, thus a certainty. While there might not be a place for doubt in the matter of what it takes to be human, it most certainly exists within the realm of what it takes to create a monster and/or to dehumanise an individual. For instance, when comparing a person to an animal from any other species, the argument that often appears as a justification of why human beings—and/or being human—should be perceived as higher, greater, more important, is the extension of our memory and our ability to think in a way that has thus far lead to the creation of civilization. Furthermore—and quite curiously—ours seems to be the only type of memory capable of feeding into a monster's creation, for monsters—despite their appearance which may, at times, resemble that of an animal—end up carrying a certain personification within them. For any creature that resembles any type of animal, there's the term beast. I, myself, fancy it curious to suppose that for any other creature that conveys any sort of humanity, there's the term monster—and that includes beasts themselves; take 'Beauty and the Beast', for example. And that "sort of humanity" might also be read as "the creature's memories" if we take into account the defended thesis of memory being determined by space and place, geography and epistemology.
Likewise, memory might be sectioned into several categories, one of them being Otherness—just as Otherness might be considered a conjunction of various precedents, one of them being memory itself. What has contributed, both directly and indirectly, towards the construction of an individual's memory up until the present moment? How has the said memory come to fruition? Depending on one's answers to these questions, an alien condition may be found in an individual's memory which sooner or later redirections them towards a state of Otherness, eventually leading them further away from humanity and closer to monsterness.
It would be just as interesting as it'd be righteous to wonder whether a monster holds any sort of consciousness. If we take into account Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein', we become aware that the concept of monsterness that limits its protagonist's condition and that consequently influences the way society perceives them is their need to learn about science and other human discoveries through the reading of the works of Goethe, Plutarch, and Milton, something that ultimately leads them towards recognising everything human. Parallel to this recognition, they end up learning about whatever isn't human, thus, abnormal and/or monstrous. Nonetheless, the main thing to take notice of is the fact that both Frankenstein and Jacques acquire a certain level of knowledge and self-awareness that ensuingly translates into consciousness, which is fundamentally linked to the so-called truth.
If one attempts to organise these key concepts into a scheme we might conclude that, lastly, these converge towards one same denouement: knowledge brings power to those who can acquire it, and those who can do so, find themselves in a position of privilege. Moreover, if one takes advantage of such an observation to turn it into a socio-political discussion, the fact that the learning process (or process of learning) represents in itself a privileged status, helps to emphasise society's behaviour when it comes down to the educational system. Despite that, what literary works such as these seem to aim towards is to open a discussion on whatever it is that makes a monster and on just how guilty the society as a whole should be considered for the creation of these creatures that it seems to ultimately fear and shun.
So far, both Jacques and Frankenstein share traits that are ultimately considered human, such as their hunger for knowledge—which equals their need to fulfil their curiosity—, their ability to create memories, and the fact that their memory and learning apprehension evolves into consciousness. However, the acquirement of such a state of consciousness seems to further place them closer to a position of monstrousness in some sort of a come-hither, rather than a human one, albeit for distinct reasons. In Jacques's case, he seems to consciously choose to distance himself from his upbringing, meaning, the place and way he was taught how to be a human being which ultimately guides him towards a new state of being, a state of Otherness that eventually leads to one of monsterness. This raises the question: do both Other/ness and monsterness exist in the eye of the beholder and/or in the sub/conscious of the individual themselves? Does Otherness come prior to monsterness or vice-versa? Must one suffer some sort of metamorphosis which places them in a position of Other before transitioning to a monster or does it depend on every single case? Well, an affirmative answer to the first part of this last question could certainly represent a theory that supports the idea that monsters are created rather than being born. Even beasts might be looked upon as being some sort of mutants for they always come from a place of normalcy before tearing it apart and delving into a monstrous state.
What's curious to observe about the etymology of the word monster is that it comes from the Latin monere—a word that derives from the Latin verb moneo which translates as to admonish—; it conveys an admonition concerning the crucial occurrence when one traverses sundry limits that may galvanise the act of growing into a monster. The means through which any individual may come to truthfully admonish about anything at all is by gathering enough knowledge over the matter and whatever may surround the said matter plus its various hypothesis—if we're looking into a more detailed and thought over argument, that is, as opposed to a lay, uninformed one. Also, it might be of interest to note that the Latin word for knowledge is scientia while the Greek one is gnosis. The former also relates to cognisance, awareness, the act of learning and, of course, science. The latter one is quite similar for it relates to a knowledge that connects theory to application, which is to say it is the type of wisdom that comes from experience. In addition, it might be interesting to remember that Gnostic religions, for instance, are ones that promote salvation through knowledge contrary to those that do so via faith.
In order to try to better summarise all of the information so far, I hereby present you with an example. I've ventured towards creating a scheme that could hopefully be comprehensible—and not that far off from logic:
When it comes down to Jacques's education process/progress, it became apparent during his infancy that he was quite curious as a child, whose instinct would lead towards a need for satiating his growing inquisitiveness. Such is the reason why he'd eventually evolve into a lycée student as opposed to a wildlife student—as suggested by the mention of the unknown language of the events of nature during the opening of the book. Nonetheless, Jacques does dare dream of the unknown world that exists far and beyond the life that he shares with his family. And it just so happens that a lycée is a place, according to his schoolmaster, “qui vous ouvre toutes les portes”, thus contributing to his know-how on how to explore and expand his need for enlightenment.
While doing so, it comes to our understanding that he chooses to separate himself from the Self that he's known so far; he chooses Otherness; he chooses to become the Other. Alongside this effort de dépersonnalisation comes an alarming propinquity to la vérité, a dangerous stage where one shatters the illusions that life has been feeding them and faces its monstrous repercussions. Also, if we take into account that another monster figure such as Caligula would impose anyone upon living in vérité, we might realise just how the monster monopolises and subjects the individual to its time and space. This being said, the "monstre chez Jacques" seems to search for an answer to questions such as: has he lost any chance of re/gaining a myth of lost innocence given the timeline between his birth and education as an Algerian and his prise de conscience regarding the colonialistic reality to which his homeland has been subjugated to thus far? Additionally, as Agnès Spiquel poses, has Jacques grown into an adult that has strayed so far away from the insulating realm of les siens that the completion of his processus d'humanisation where the "monstre retrouve le chemin de son cœur et la vérité de ce que c’est qu’être un homme" seems close to unattainable?
On the Epistemological (Burden of the) Monster and their Descent to Anéantissement
Let us not forget that the realm of les siens consists of an oppressive and authoritarian grandmother, a mute and partially deaf mother, and a very much vulgar and likewise deaf uncle, a trinity that attempts to bury Jacques' head in this self-unawareness filled-reality that all three seem to share given their enclosed existence, one where the geography and language that they know of are entirely related to “la pauvreté, l’infirmité, le besoin élémentaire où toute sa famille vivait”. It should come as no surprise that the very questions mentioned in the former paragraph could also represent to Jacques a way to purge himself from the reality that he's known throughout his early to young adult years.
The reader's given the information that Jacques must travel “de l’autre côté exactement, à l’autre extrémité de l’arc de cercle que formait la ville […] dans un quartier autrefois opulent et morne, et devenu, par la vertu de l’immigration espagnole, un des plus populaires et des plus vivants d’Alger”. This quartier, both spatially and socially, comes to not only discern Jacques' two lives but also to represent the separation happening between them, given that it epitomises the protagonist's confinement and stresses what the lycée—the means to abscond from rest of the world—betokens. Jacques' time is, hence, divided between his past—the ignorance, the innocence, the family—and his future—his avenir at the lycée. As a result, the evolution of his language—a tremendous distancing from the illiteracy that surrounds his family and that yet, reaffirms them as essentially human—equals his progression towards Otherness.
This matter is continuously discussed amongst academics; previously, Jean-Jacques Rosseau has wondered about what determines a contrast between the creation and evolution of language due to a primal need versus one that merely responds to universal arbitrariness. Also, in his 'Conclusions on Walter Benjamin's 'The Task of the Translator'', Paul de Man, avowedly intending on getting "the divine out of reading", has challenged the perception of language as being an aftermath of everything human arguing, instead, that its nature is indeed monstrous (on a side note, there's a really interesting article, from 2012, on Paul de Man's defiance towards Walter Benjamin's work, by Andrea Mirabile, entitled 'Allegory, Pathos, and Irony: the Resistance to Benjamin in Paul de Man', just in case you'd like to further read into this bit of information).
There's an interview where Albert Camus speaks of a "premier homme qui part à zéro, qui ne sait ni lire, ni écrire" and it certainly reminds us of the very beginning of Jacques' path towards his monstrification, one that closely resembles that of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein for they're just as an autodidact as Camus' protagonist himself when it comes down to their acquired language and literacy. Notwithstanding, these two terms seem to play quite an essential role in terms of what qualifies a monster for they are what eventually allow for these characters' process of becoming, a process that consists of amassing as much historical, epistemological, and narrative knowledge as possible. The more knowledgeable they become, the wider and deeper their deviation grows. As this is the part where Camus awes his reader with a seeming confession of guilt, one where he apparently acknowledges the fact that the Jacques monstre has gone too far, ergo allowing the reader to understand that the protagonist is indeed a Jacques/Camus monstre.
This confession of guilt is important concerning its outcome: a wish to become human once again. And the way of achieving such an effort is by undergoing a process of anéantissement, one that suggests the absolute annihilation of the historical, epistemological, and narrative knowledgeable Jacques; the need for an immense oubli to take place. Hereupon, the fact that Jacques wishes not to leave a perpetual record of his monstrous accomplishments might reflect the author's desire to forgo art and forget himself. In the former's case, his exodus towards Algiers could be interpreted as an attempt at estrangement regarding his a-historically, a-geographically, and a-linguistically barren birthplace, a sort of metaphorical act of plunging into forgottenness. Meanwhile, the latter is known to have reconsidered not only where his life had led him to—spatially, historically, linguistically, epistemologically—especially after being targetted by great criticism, such as Sartre's, for example, when he exclaimed that Camus made it seem as if " (...) vous ayez été pauvre mais vous ne l’êtes plus; vous êtes un bourgeois", highly contributing for the author's seemingly need to return to his humble origins made obvious by his relocation from Paris to Provence—once again, the parallelism established between these events and Debord's théorie de psychogéographie, I find, is utterly fascinating to observe and analyse.
In short, both Jacques and Camus seem to want to regain their sense of innocence through the means of immediacy and oblivion—the process of anéantissement. Furthermore, I do not fancy an observation on the matter of the violence, that seems inherent to such a process, as a senseless ponder for it is indeed quite violent. In fact, Camus' work presents us with, at least, two types of violent repentance; one from Jacques monstre, in 'Le Premier Homme', who seeks to erase any trace that he could leave in the world; and the other from the absurd man, in 'Le Mythe de Sisyphe', who seeks to commit suicide. Both were bedevilled by this need of delving into complete nothingness.
On an additional note, curiously, there is another literary figure that goes by the name of Jacques that carries on a tiresome endeavour almost his entire life of avoiding memory at all costs. This is the protagonist of W. G. Sebald's 'Austerlitz', a book that may be perceived as an invitation to demystify remembrance to those who've ended up associating it with some sort of monstrousness due to traumatic events. This character ends up embarking on a journey that helps him recover, thus reminding him of, what it is that makes him the human being that he's grown to be as well as—and this is a very significant point—regaining control of his own identity. All things considered, it could pose as an eminently interesting course of action to enquire just how much the concept of identity plays a main role in both of these protagonists' stories—conjointly, of course, with the stories of the remaining ones mentioned throughout this analysis—for it does not strike me as nonsensical to classify the question(s) "who am I?"/"who do I wish to become?" as the characters' motivation that triggers them into action.
So, how come the concept of identity seems to spark such violent acts upon these characters when it comes down to their closure? Well, the answer could be intimately—perhaps even, entirely—connected to the fact that Maslow's pyramid is not that far off from what builds a character/persona, be it fictional or non-fictional. His hierarchy of needs suggests that one's identity has five stages: physiology, safety, belonging, esteem, and self-actualization. The three that I've highlighted cover certain aspects that seem, to me at least, fundamental to these narrative arcs: (sense of) connection, recognition, freedom, and desire (of becoming the most that one can be). Pertaining to the concept of violence considered in the aforementioned works by the French-Algerian author, this one may be analogous to the concept of identity for the peak of each of the protagonists' development and self-taught moments come in the form of an act of disappearance. Be it through forgetfulness, be it through death, these characters let their reader appreciate just how uniquely corporeal of an experience it is to walk the purpose of attaining ipseity by the agency of alterity. It may be just as curious to note that, given the fact that the latter term derives from the Latin word alter which means "the other of two", in a more generic perception, the violence that presents itself in the form of literature and myths stems from a doubleness that's inward to the human being (or to being human). Hypothetically, a human that chases a truth that ends up isolating them from others is also one that is slowly but surely growing into an Other, the climax of this transformation/disassociation being the act of metamorphosing into a monster. In the case of Jacques' monstrification, for example, he grows to know things that others do not. And in the case of Camus, the author further exemplifies to what extent this protagonist's process reflects his own when he adds in another note that "on ne peut vivre avec la vérité—en ‘sachant’. Celui qui le fait se sépare des autres hommes, il ne peu plus rien partager de leur illusion.", and such an observation, regarding the problem of conscience that ultimately goes hand in hand with the search for truth, is crucial to what he concludes Jacques to be and to represent: "Il est un monstre—et c’est ce que je suis.”
Note: This analysis is sectioned into three parts. The second part will consist of an interpretation of the Jacques/Camus monstre in relation to some contemporary films and television series.
Bibliography:
CAMUS, Albert, Le Premier Homme, Éditions Gallimard, 1994
GIACHETTI, Lorenzo, "A Psychogeography of the Monstrous in Le Premier Homme" A Writer's Topography: Space and Place in the Life and Works of Albert Camus, Leiden, Brill Rodopi, 2015
RAMSAY, Raylene, "Colonial/Postcolonial Hybridity in Le Premier Homme and Jean-Marie Tjibaou's "First Man", Kanaké" Albert Camus in the 21st Century: A Reassessment of his Thinking at the Dawn of the New Millenium, Amesterdam, Editions Rodopi B.V., 2008