Some Deep Feeling of Embarrassment

On my first reading of this passage, I had misread whose, "deep feeling of embarrassment," it was. While Michel's father may have "shared it," the sentiment belongs to Michel. Throughout part one of The Immoralist, Michel's narration seems to shift from a concentration on his external world to his internal consciousness. As discussed in class today, for example, the passage on page 43:

"From now on, he was the one I intended to discover: the authentic being, the 'old Adam' rejected by the Gospel, the one that everything in my life-- books, teachers, parents, I myself-- had tried to suppress. I was starting to glimpse him already, still vague and elusive, due to the accumulated layers of disguise, but all the more worthy of discovery for that. I now despised this secondary being which education had inscribed upon him. I had to shake off these layers."

Although we are reading Watson's translation of Gide, this passage is highly emphatic. In other words, Michel seems to be drawing attention to this "new" persona in order to distance his "authentic being" from "this secondary being."

However, this narrative is complicated by Michel's first three sentences. For example:

"My dear friends, I knew I could rely on your loyalty. You came running to my call as I would have done to yours. Yet we have not seen each other for three years." pg. 15

The opening suggests that Michel's story is an explanation, of sorts, to his friends, which creates a tension. On the one hand, we have a narrative that explores Michel's sexuality and, by extension, his psychology. On the other hand, this exploration seems to be framed as an explanation, which implies wrong-doing. While Michel's narration delves into his inner psyche, Gide frames this text in the external world and its notion of morality. Indeed, the title is The Immoralist.

Although I haven't finished the text yet, I think this frame is ironic. But, I find it interesting that Gide choses to start Michel's narrative with remorse for, "knowing how to live with [his] freedom." pg. 15

Also, I think Gide's epigram is telling:

"I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made" Psalm 139:121