Paper Assignment for Albert Camus' The Fall
1. Is the narrator, Jean-Baptiste Clamence, an absurd, heroic everyman or is he a discontented, malingering misanthrope? Is he both? Is he neither?
2. Choose one of the labels mentioned above or provide your own characterization of the narrator, illustrate your characterization with relevant scenes related by the narrator and/or utterances by the narrator, and by doing so, explain why you believe your characterization is valid.
3. In your conclusion, try to assess whether Clamence's obsession with his own guilt, his continuous confessions, his guilty conscience, and his distrust of virtue make him seem like an actual man who might be living today or whether his behavior makes him seem like someone who belongs to a different time.