Le premier homme and society/class

I thought it was interesting to see Le premier homme in relation to Camus’ changing friendship with Sartre, and particularly the differing backgrounds that seemed to eventually lead to friction. In the novel, Camus frequently describes the poverty that surrounds Jacques, and the persistent need to work hard and avoid unemployment: “Le travail dans ce quartier n’était pas une vertu, mais une nécessité qui, pour faire vivre, conduisait à la mort” (283). In this environment, Jacques and his peers find themselves accusing “les Italiens, les Espagnols, les Juifs, les Arabes et finalement la terre entière de leur voler leur travail – attitude déconcertante certainement pour les intellectuels qui font la théorie du prolétariat, et pourtant fort humaine et bien excusable”. This last part of the quote, with the reference to “intellectuals” and their proletariat theories, is perhaps a dig at Sartre, whom Camus felt could not possibly truly understand the roots of social inequality, coming as he did from a well-off bourgeois family. I thought the detailed passage with Jacques and his two francs piece was especially interesting, as it seemed to mark a moment of Jacques’ realisation of his family’s own hardship: “il comprenait que ce n’était pas l’avarice qui avait conduit sa grand-mère à fouiller dans l’ordure, mais la nécessité terrible qui faisait que dans cette maison deux francs étaient une somme” (122). In this same passage, Jacques also understands the necessity to work in order to live, and this is described as a “leçon de courage, non de morale”. This vocabulary is used earlier in the novel to refer to the many children born into this same position: “des centaines d’orphelins naissaient dans tous les coins d’Algérie, arabes et français, fils et filles sans père qui devraient ensuite apprendre à vivre sans leçon et sans héritage” (84). The mentioning of lessons and learning allude to education, or rather, the lack of it. In referring to growing up fatherless and without heritage, Camus further confronts social issues of which, in this later autobiographical work, he reveals he, unlike Sartre, had first-hand experience.