The Immoralist

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1902

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Part 1, Chapter 2

Part 1, Chapters 3-5

Part 1, Chapters 6-9

Part 2, Chapters 1-2

Part 2, Chapter 3-Part 3

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Part 1, Chapters 3-5Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1

Part 1, Chapter 3 Summary

During his illness, Michel becomes hyper-focused on his body because his sensations are so intense that he can hardly think. Looking back, he believes that he must have had a “nervous disorder” (30) in addition to tuberculosis because his extreme sensitivity to changes in temperature causes him to always feel either too hot or too cold. He retains this sensitivity even after he recovers, but he tells his friends that “these days it is a source of exquisite pleasure” (30).

Eventually, Michel starts to feel well enough to walk to the park with Marceline, who socializes with the locals. Her presence makes Michel feel uneasy because he grows tired of her asking how he is feeling. One day he goes to the park without Marceline, accompanied by Bachir, who carries his shawl. Bachir introduces Michel to his sister, who is playing in a nearby canal. Bachir’s sister asks for “two sous,” and Michel gives her ten. He also meets Bachir’s mother, who is a washerwoman. She asks Bachir to help her, so Bachir leaves Michel by himself.

Michel soon meets Ashour, a Black 14-year-old boy. Michel enjoys Ashour’s company and finds him to be a pleasant change from Bachir, whom he has already grown tired of. When Michel arrives back at his hotel, he considers inviting Ashour to come inside, but then decides not to invite him because he is not sure if Marceline would approve. However, when he goes into his rooms, he finds Marceline caring for another boy, who is sick, in their hotel room. She admits that she wasn’t sure whether to invite the boy in because she was worried Michel would be angry. He grows upset and yells at her that she can bring all the children she wants to visit. Once he calms down, he tells her that he prefers to walk to the park by himself.

The next day, he goes to the park again feeling well-rested and rejuvenated. He appreciates all the sights and smells of the landscape and starts to feel as if he is truly alive for the first time since his childhood. He reads a few lines from the Odyssey and feels happy.

Part 1, Chapter 4 Summary

Once Michel starts to feel stronger, he and Marceline visit nearby orchards. Michel enjoys the scenery and the sensation of the breeze. While walking, they encounter a child goatherd named Lassif, who is playing the flute. Lassif is 12 years old and good-looking. When Michel and Marceline pause to rest, Michel listens to the child’s flute and to another flute playing in the distance, as well as to the sounds of goats bleating. He lies down and closes his eyes, feeling the heat of the sun and listening to the wind whistle through the palm trees.

The next day, Michel returns to the orchards with Marceline and then visits them again by himself in the afternoon. He meets Lassif again and talks with him, learning his name and meeting his brother, Lachmi. On subsequent days, Michel continues to explore the orchards, going farther each time. He befriends more children and gives them money, inviting them back to his hotel rooms. Marceline also invites children from the school to come to their rooms. The two groups of children play together under the couple’s supervision.

Later that month, the weather grows cold and rainy, causing Michel to feel ill. He stops visiting the orchards and feels miserable. Some children still come to visit him on the rainy days, which cheers him up. Nevertheless, he feels annoyed by both his wife and the children, stating that he “kept them at a distance” because “they frightened me” (38).

Michel becomes interested in one of the children, however: one of his wife’s favorites, a boy named Moktir. Moktir does not irritate Michel, because the boy is “good-looking” (38). One day, Michel watches Moktir steal a pair of scissors. He decides not to tattle on the boy because he does not want Moktir to get into trouble. In fact, Moktir’s transgression delights Michel and makes him like the boy even more.

Part 1, Chapter 5 Summary

In February, the climate in Biskra grows warmer. The couple visits the orchard again and they take Ashour and Bachir with them. Now that Michel feels almost fully recovered, he is no longer as interested in the children, whose company he enjoyed mostly because of “the spectacle of their health” (40). He realizes he has been neglecting his wife while he was sick, and now he begins to feel attracted to her. When the weather becomes too hot for their liking, they decide to leave Biskra.

On their last night in Biskra, Michel cannot sleep. He looks out the window and only hears silence, which causes him to feel frightened by the lack of signs of life. He simultaneously rejoices at the feeling of being alive and considers his mortality. His fears of death resurge suddenly, but instead of avoiding these morbid thoughts, he wants to “fix the memory of this night in [his] mind, so as not to lose it” (41). He finds a Bible verse, John 21:18, that also reminds him of his own mortality.

Part 1, Chapters 3-5 Analysis

During these chapters, Gide introduces the theme of sensuality as a source of both pain and pleasure for Michel. When he is ill, the protagonist’s heightened sensitivity to sensual experiences is torturous, but later, it becomes pleasurable. Michel states, “Everything that was painful to me then is now a delight” (31). This reversal foreshadows the key role Michel’s illness plays in changing his outlook on life. Being ill forces him to entirely live in the present because he does not have “the strength to live a dual life” of both the mind and body (30). Thus, his illness serves as a gateway to living a life focused on sensual pleasure, and he rediscovers sensual sensibilities that he had all along.

His brush with death also reminds Michel of his own mortality, causing him to appreciate living in the moment. Paradoxically, thinking of his own inevitable aging and death frightens him at the same time that it causes him to feel even more pleasure in experiencing the present. His obsession with youth and health reflects his fear of death. Michel fixates on the superficial appearances of the children he encounters, focusing on their beauty and vitality, because he desires those qualities for himself.

Furthermore, Gide uses tropes of pastoral literature to portray the children in the orchards as idealized peasants who are in touch with nature. Originating in ancient times, pastoral literature is a type of literature that depicts shepherds and goatherders as leading idyllic lives untouched by the complexity of civilization. The goatherders Lassif and Lachmi are emblematic of this trope. Michel’s interest in them signals his desire discover a more primitive self that has shed society’s demands and can commune with nature. Michel’s desire for the boys’ youth also aligns with a common 19th-century excuse for colonization in white European cultures—the false idea that non-European people were more childlike than Europeans and therefore less jaded or corrupted by societal pressures.

The motif of weather emerges in these chapters, too, as Gide portrays the climate as influencing both Michel’s health and his moods. Whenever the weather grows cold, Michel’s health worsens and he withdraws from social interactions. When the weather is warm, he feels invigorated.

Meanwhile, these chapters continue to develop the conflict between Michel and his wife. He perceives her as an obstacle to his agency, restricting his ability to enjoy life. For example, Michel dislikes it when Marceline accompanies him on his walks to the park, commenting that “she was in the way” (32). Because he must maintain a sense of decorum when Marceline is there, Michel feels more comfortable interacting with the local children without Marceline present. He also lashes out at Marceline when he feels frustrated that he must consider Marceline’s sense of propriety in making his own decisions, such as when he is not sure whether he should invite Ashour to their hotel rooms. Michel’s distaste for Marceline’s conventionality also manifests in his dislike for her favorite children, whom he finds, “too weak, and sickly, and too well-behaved” (38). His complaints about Marceline in these chapters seem trivial but hint that Michel will find her more constraining later in the book.

Finally, through Michel’s encounter with Moktir, Gide introduces the theme of immoral behavior as liberating. Michel delights in watching Moktir steal the scissors. He becomes fascinated by the child because he wishes to do the same: rebel against society’s rules without any regard for what others think.