The Immoralist

Gide uses the motif of ruins to associate classical civilization with both intellectualism and hedonism. Michel is classics scholar, specializing in the ancient history of the Roman Empire. Prior to his honeymoon, his interest in visiting North Africa and Italy is entirely intellectual. His main desire for his first trip is to see the ancient ruins in Tunisia, stating, “I could see no other attractions in this new country other than Carthage and a handful of Roman ruins” (19). However, once he becomes aware of his own mortality after contracting tuberculosis, he avoids ruins because they remind him of death. He views the fall of Roman civilization as evidence that too much intellectualism can cause stagnation, leading to a society’s downfall. Instead, he becomes interested in the past only as it relates to the present, and specifically to his philosophical interest in hedonism.

Michel becomes fascinated by Gothic civilization, specifically King Athalaric, who gives up his kingdom to pursue hedonism. Thus, Athalaric become a blueprint for Michel’s pursuit of pleasure and rebellion against societal constraints. Nevertheless, after Michel’s child dies and his wife falls ill, he still feels that ancient civilization is unable to satisfy his questions about life: “Young Athalaric could have risen from the dead and spoken to me, I was no longer listening. How could Antiquity provide an answer to my new question: what is man still capable of?” (110). While exploring history provides Michel with temporary satisfaction, he finds it an inadequate substitute for experiencing life. Still, Michel’s life mirrors Athalaric’s trajectory of giving up status and power in favor of pleasure, and just as Athalaric died due his debauchery, pursuing hedonism leads to Michel’s unhappiness and loss.

Gide links ancient ruins to Michel’s self-destructive behaviors when he visits the Roman ruins on his second trip. While there, he contemplates the ruins and wonders what comes next in his life: “Oh, I could have wept at the sight of those ruins! They stood in all their ancient beauty—simple, perfect, smiling…and deserted. I am losing my art, I can feel it going—to be replaced by what? Not as before, a happy harmony…I no longer know the dark god I revere” (120). By juxtaposing Michel’s frantic thoughts about how he is losing himself through his increasingly immoral actions against the backdrop of the ruins, Gide employs the ruins as a representation of the hollowed-out life that Michel experiences due to his pursuit of pleasure: he is left alone, his wife dead, remorseful about his behavior but unable to control his own indulgence in vices.