Corruption In The Fall, By John Baptiste

Every person has a darkness that they subconsciously conceal from the public. People mask their flaws in hopes of heightening their public image, but in the process, they lose their authentic identity; this false sense of one’s self causes a blindness to grace. In Camus’s, “The Fall,” John Baptiste, the interlocutor, exposes mankind for rationalizing shortcomings and flaws by fornicating and reading the papers (Camus 7). Dorothy Day ironically observes no grace within Christianity when Christians read the Bible, for they support Jesus’ miracles but ignore the corruption in their present society. Lastly, this current generation’s mask - blinding people from grace - is social media; social media is a way for people to selectively post highlights in their lives while disregarding all of the misery and darkness in the world. With irrational excuses, false senses of self, and ignoring the world’s

John-Baptiste, the interlocutor of the novel, exposes people’s tendency to sin without feeling guilty by judging other people’s shortcomings when he states, “I sometimes think of what future historians will say of us. A single sentence will suffice for modern man: he fornicated and read the papers” (Camus 6-7). Jean-Baptiste notices that people sin regularly, but what bothers him even more than the sin itself is the inability to confront one's self about the flaw. People mindlessly sin, but when a different person messes up, they recognize the flaw and judge them for it. This judgement diminishes the guilt of the first sinner. The cycle of sinning and judging others is applicable to everyone, and the greatest misfortune associated with it is that people are not willing to confront their faults meanwhile they can recognize the evil within others. In this way, rationalizing one’s faults by judging others’ mistakes exemplifies the lack of grace in this