Sunday, 21 November 2010

Religious imagery in La Chute

I thought one of the most interesting elements of La Chute was the abundance of Christian religious imagery, which have been relatively scarce in Camus until this point. As well as the obvious allegory between Clamence's life and the fall of man, and the comparison between Amsterdam and the circles of hell (which is, admittedly, more Dante than the Bible), Clamence uses religious language and examples both thoughtfully and casually. One that particularly struck me came early on in the novel, when Clamence says that he felt like "fils de roi, ou buisson ardent". The "son of the king" could be a reference to Jesus, while the "burning bush" is a significant Old Testament image. It's found in Exodus 3 - an angel of God appears to him in a bush that burns but is not consumed, and from there God tells him that he will lead God's chosen people out of Egypt to the promised land. The description of the bush comes in verses 2 and 3, which are:

2 here the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. 3 So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.”

In verse 6, it says that " Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God." By comparing himself to the burning bush, Clamence is essentially calling himself God, which fits in with the idea of him being the "juge-penitent".

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