Henry de Montherlant is a moralist, this is to say a writer whose principal concern is how man ought to live. His essays, plays, and novels serve this inquiry; they record and analyze Montherlant's observation of human behavior; they are dialectical and rhetorical exercises in support of an essentially psychological interpretation of life.

For Montherlant, men are isolated creatures, responding to psychological imperatives. These are often at variance with the patterns of behavior sanctioned by society, which is in itself no more than an uneasy collective of individual consciousnesses…. (p. 704)

According to Montherlant, it is man's nature to be attracted by opposites; it is his destiny always to be moving between polarities, between sensuality and chastity, for instance, between reason and unreason, between courage and cowardice.

The central fact of human existence is inconsistency…. (pp. 704-05)

[It] is easy to understand the puzzlement and strong feelings engendered both...