The Immoralist

The Immoralist Summary | Part 1, Chapter 1 Summary

The Immoralist is the story of Michel, a young Frenchman who lives in the last years of the 19th century and whose quest for self-identity ultimately destroys his marriage, career, and wealth. The novel is known for being alarming for its homosexual theme in the time it was written in 1902 but by today's standards the story has little or no shock value. It is, however, an excellent study in the struggle between good and evil and convention and self will as Michel's inner struggles are revealed.

The novel begins with a letter written by a friend of Michel's to the friend's brother stating that he and two other friends named Denis and Daniel have found Michel in North Africa and have been able to speak with him. Michel's state of mind is in question although the friend asks the brother not to judge Michel too harshly after hearing his story for any man is susceptible to erratic behavior at certain points in his life. The three friends had not seen Michel for three years having been immersed in their own lives and family commitments but when Michel sent for them all three men came at his request. Michel has clearly changed in appearance and demeanor but the telling of the story will explain all that.

The friends find Michel at his home after traveling from France to Algiers, Constantine, and finally the city of Sidi b. M. in Tunisia. Michel greets his friends with no emotion or enthusiasm outside the house and waits until they are all assembled inside to embrace them. After dinner the four friends make themselves comfortable on the terrace overlooking the desert where Michel begins the story for which he has summoned his friends.

Michel thanks his dear friends for coming at his request and asks that they listen to his story and his need to tell it in order to be free. The last time the friends had seen each other was three years ago at Michel's wedding to a young woman of twenty named Marceline. Michel does not know Marceline very well when they marry as he does it to please his dying father who wishes that Michel will not be left alone in the world.

There is really nothing to bind Michel and Marceline and actually her Catholicism is a deterrent but Michel keeps his promise to his dying father and feels that he is prepared to marry Marceline and give her all of himself although in hindsight Michel understands how pitiful that vow was at the time.

Michel has lived the sheltered life of a scholar becoming a devotee of his father's Greek and Latin studies after the death of his mother when he was only fifteen. By the time Michel is twenty he is writing celebrated books credited to his father and it comes as a surprise to Michel one day to discover the wealth that he and his father have accumulated.

Michel's sheltered and sedentary life has contributed to his delicate health condition and he is grateful for Marceline's strength, which will soon be more valuable than Michel realizes. The honeymoon trip consists of a stop in Paris for shopping, then on to Marseilles, and finally the end destination of Tunis. The gravity of the marriage finally occurs to Michel aboard ship once the flurry of the activities subsides. Coupled with the grief from his father's death, Michel who is already delicate is weakened emotionally and physically.

While onboard Michel realizes that he has never had a break from studies and work for his entire life and vows to forego academia to discover his new life. Michel has never spent much time in the company of women so discovering Marceline is also a new adventure and realizing that his solitary life is now bound to another is a staggering thought.

During their honeymoon travels, Michel contracts tuberculosis and the route to their final destination is filled with a series of bleak hotels and somber, drafty rooms which drain the health and the spirits of the weakening Michel. One night having left a hotel in the evening on route to the next stop, Michel realizes that his coughs are now producing blood and he is immediately startled yet does not wake the sleeping Marceline preferring to hide his infirmity.

When the couple arrives at Biskra, Algiers, Michel is gravely ill yet manages to settle into his room and order tea for Marceline and himself. It is only then that Michel reveals his extreme coughing to Marceline who immediately faints and falls to the floor. Michel summons a doctor whose arrival is better timed to tend to Michel who is by now shaking with fever and chills. Michel falls into a fitful sleep and awakes to find Marceline at his bedside and through the next several days of consciousness, Michel grows to respect and love the woman he has married for her kindness and practicality in the attempts to nurse him back to health.