The Fall, which has received mixed reviews from the time of its publication on, although it was hailed by Jean-Paul Sartre as the work that best reflects Camus's moral thinking, is a subtle confession. In the self-accusation of Jean-Baptiste Clamence, one finds the accusation of everyone, "the triumphant annunciation of man's total depravation," in the words of Germaine Bree. Camus satirizes the vices of an entire generation, and the basic guilt of humanity in every generation. Postwar men and women still suffered from the crimes of the early 1940s, and Holland is seen as a country of guilt for the Nazi massacres of the Jews. On the other hand, the question of universal guilt marks this work for some critics as a piece of religious writing.

Camus wrote The Fall when he was struggling with the question of Algerian independence. According to McCarthy...