The Self-Taught Man Character Analysis

There are still about twenty customers left, bachelors, small-time engineers, office employees. They eat hurriedly in boarding-houses which they call their “popotes” and since they need a little luxury, they come here after their meals. They drink a cup of coffee and play poker dice; they make a little noise, an inconsistent noise which doesn’t bother me. In order to exist, they must consort with others.

I am alone, entirely alone. I never speak to anyone, never; I receive nothing, I give nothing.

I have never had adventures. Things have happened to me, events, incidents, anything you like. But no adventures. It isn’t a question of words; I am beginning to understand. There is something to which I clung more than all the rest — without completely realizing it. […] It was ... I had imagined that at certain times my life could take on a rare and precious quality. There was no need for extraordinary circumstances: all I asked for was a little precision. There is nothing brilliant about my life now: but from time to time, for example, when they play music in the cafes, I look back and tell myself : in old days, in London, Meknes, Tokyo, I have known great moments, I have had adventures. Now I am deprived of this. I have suddenly learned, without any apparent reason, that I have been lying to myself for ten years. And naturally, everything they tell about in books can happen in real life, but not in the same way. It is to this way of happening that I clung so tightly.

I suddenly understood: the cloak! I wanted to stop it. It would have been enough to cough or open the gate. But in my turn I was fascinated by the little girl’s face. Her features were drawn with fear and her heart must have been beating horribly: yet I could also read something powerful and wicked on that rat-like face. It was not curiosity but rather a sort of assured expectation. I felt impotent: I was outside, on the edge of the park, on the edge of their little drama: but they were riveted one to the other by the obscure power of their desires, they made a pair together.

“Perhaps you are a misanthrope?”

I know what this fallacious effort at conciliation hides. He asks little from me: simply to accept a label. But it is a trap: if I consent, the Self-Taught Man wins, I am immediately turned round, reconstituted, overtaken, for humanism takes possession and melts all human attitudes into one. […] He has digested anti-intellectualism, Manicheism, mysticism, pessimism, anarchy and egotism: they are nothing more than stages, unfinished thoughts which find their justification only in him. Misanthropy also has its place in the concert: it is only a dissonance necessary to the harmony of the whole. The misanthrope is a man: therefore the humanist must be misanthropic to a certain extent.

[The Self-Taught Man] must be walking at random, filled with shame and horror—this poor humanist whom men don’t want. To tell the truth, I was hardly surprised when the thing happened: for a long time I had thought that his soft, timid face would bring scandal on itself. He was so little guilty: his humble, contemplative love for young boys is hardly sensuality—rather a form of humanity. But one day he had to find himself alone. Like M. Achille, like me: he is one of my race, he has good will. Now he has entered into solitude—forever.

There are still about twenty customers left, bachelors, small-time engineers, office employees. They eat hurriedly in boarding-houses which they call their “popotes” and since they need a little luxury, they come here after their meals. They drink a cup of coffee and play poker dice; they make a little noise, an inconsistent noise which doesn’t bother me. In order to exist, they must consort with others.

I am alone, entirely alone. I never speak to anyone, never; I receive nothing, I give nothing.

I have never had adventures. Things have happened to me, events, incidents, anything you like. But no adventures. It isn’t a question of words; I am beginning to understand. There is something to which I clung more than all the rest — without completely realizing it. […] It was ... I had imagined that at certain times my life could take on a rare and precious quality. There was no need for extraordinary circumstances: all I asked for was a little precision. There is nothing brilliant about my life now: but from time to time, for example, when they play music in the cafes, I look back and tell myself : in old days, in London, Meknes, Tokyo, I have known great moments, I have had adventures. Now I am deprived of this. I have suddenly learned, without any apparent reason, that I have been lying to myself for ten years. And naturally, everything they tell about in books can happen in real life, but not in the same way. It is to this way of happening that I clung so tightly.

I suddenly understood: the cloak! I wanted to stop it. It would have been enough to cough or open the gate. But in my turn I was fascinated by the little girl’s face. Her features were drawn with fear and her heart must have been beating horribly: yet I could also read something powerful and wicked on that rat-like face. It was not curiosity but rather a sort of assured expectation. I felt impotent: I was outside, on the edge of the park, on the edge of their little drama: but they were riveted one to the other by the obscure power of their desires, they made a pair together.

“Perhaps you are a misanthrope?”

I know what this fallacious effort at conciliation hides. He asks little from me: simply to accept a label. But it is a trap: if I consent, the Self-Taught Man wins, I am immediately turned round, reconstituted, overtaken, for humanism takes possession and melts all human attitudes into one. […] He has digested anti-intellectualism, Manicheism, mysticism, pessimism, anarchy and egotism: they are nothing more than stages, unfinished thoughts which find their justification only in him. Misanthropy also has its place in the concert: it is only a dissonance necessary to the harmony of the whole. The misanthrope is a man: therefore the humanist must be misanthropic to a certain extent.

[The Self-Taught Man] must be walking at random, filled with shame and horror—this poor humanist whom men don’t want. To tell the truth, I was hardly surprised when the thing happened: for a long time I had thought that his soft, timid face would bring scandal on itself. He was so little guilty: his humble, contemplative love for young boys is hardly sensuality—rather a form of humanity. But one day he had to find himself alone. Like M. Achille, like me: he is one of my race, he has good will. Now he has entered into solitude—forever.