La Chute by Albert Camus Femininity, subhumanity, and the Algerian War

Understanding why the drowning of an unknown woman is the central episode of La Chute leads us to the observation that, in Camus’s work, desirable women form a subcategory of female beings, themselves already relegated to the background: the cry of the drowned woman thus allegorizes a subhumanity to which the modern writer who is “involved” in his time must respond. In the light of contemporary political texts, La Chute also appears to be a portrait of the misguided writer confronted with the Algerian War.