THE CONCEPT OF THE EXISTENTIAL FALL IN ALBERT CAMUS’ THE FALL AND WILLIAM GOLDING’S FREE FALL

The atrocities of World War II and the following grim period of recovery in Europe resulted in the fact that human innocence was wiped away and replaced by the state of never-ending guilt for crimes committed in the pre- and post-WWII period. The overwhelming majority of people realized that their lives were wrought by the previously dormant qualities of selfishness and hypocrisy leading them to experience their “fall”, standing for the loss of innocence and disappearing trust in the meaning of rationalised existence, from then on was undermined by the absurdity of everyday life. The concept of the existentialist fall is a recurrent theme both in Albert Camus’ The Fall and William Golding’s Free Fall. While The Fall is the forefather of many existentialist novels of the second part of the twentieth century, portraying man strangled in a hopeless and nihilist struggle taking place in the new historical environment, Free Fall, in its turn, written three years later, managed to become one of the best specimens of fiction dealing with the concepts of human sin, free will, guilt, alienation and loss of freedom. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to analyse and compare Camus’ The Fall with Golding’s Free Fall in terms of their treatment of the concept of the existentialist fall.