Journey to the End of the Night

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1932

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Pages 1-80

Pages 81-160

Pages 161-240

Pages 241-340

Pages 341-441

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Symbols & Motifs

The Night

The titular night is an important symbol in the novel. Over the course of the narrative, the idea of the night begins to clarify in Bardamu’s mind. References to the night veer from the temporal to the abstract: The night is no longer a time, but a state of mind. For Bardamu, the night comes to represent the end point of nihilism. As he suffers, as he struggles, as he tries to carve out a niche for himself in a hostile society, the night seems to draw in around him. The night is something in which he can become lost and disconnected, separated from the rest of society and reduced to a dark, shadowy, and atomized existence. For Bardamu, the night is something as “black and shapeless as [himself]” (306). He assures the reader that, as he becomes more aware of his alienation, he must “always be thinking of the night” (356). Eventually, as events begin to spiral out of his control, he feels as though there is “too much night around [him]” (405). He is lost and disconnected from the human experience, devoid of purpose and meaning in his life. Whatever light may have been cast on his direction is now gone, leaving him to stumble through the dark void. There is no longer a single night that must be endured, but a vast and endless night that overwhelms Bardamu and entraps him.

The symbolism of the night plays a key role in shaping the structure of the novel. Bardamu’s aimless wanderings across the world are only the outward manifestation of an inner journey into the metaphorical night. The narrative is structured in such a way that the journey, rather than the destination, becomes the focus. The story of Journey into the End of the Night is a symbolic descent into the depths of human alienation, with the symbolic night providing a point of reference for what Bardamu must avoid. To go too far into the night, he fears, is to lose touch with humanity. Over the course of the novel, as Bardamu is subjected to a string of dehumanizing experiences, he comes to realize the futility of his struggle. The night cannot be avoided, nor can it truly be understood. Because it is an abstract symbol, rather than an actual time, place, or item, it cannot be defeated in any meaningful sense. As such, the narrative of the novel is a journey toward this understanding, as Bardamu comes to reckon with the symbolism of the undeniable night. He comes to accept that he will be lost and can no longer fight back against the darkness.

In the context of the symbolic night, the ending of the novel takes on a new meaning. Throughout the novel, Robinson has travelled alongside Bardamu on his journey into the night. At points, such as the killing of Grandma Henrouille, he has been even more consumed by the alienating and amoral night. When Madelon kills Robinson, Bardamu is left to reflect on his actions. This period of reflection, in which he travels to a bar on the riverfront with his companions, is set at dawn. This moment of self-reflection is a symbolic awakening, the end point of Bardamu’s journey into the night. He has spent so long avoiding serious self-reflection and trying to escape any kind of comfortable stasis that this reflective dawn feels like a painful necessity. Bardamu has given himself up to the night, but he has journeyed through it, emerging on the other side with a better understanding of himself. The journey itself is what has shaped him and, as the night begins to clear and dawn begins to break, he sees the opportunity to alleviate his alienation. The death of Robinson has a profound effect on Bardamu, bringing him to the end of his journey into the night. At last, he feels something. His relationship with Robinson was always complicated and destructive, but the death forces Bardamu into a state of self-reflection. The symbolic night is coming to an end, pushed aside by a symbolic dawn of self-recognition.

Carnival

When he is living in Paris, Bardamu thinks of the carnival as a social place. To him, it is the perfect place for an inexpensive date with a woman. When he returns from the war, for example, he wants to take Lola to the carnival. Yet the war has changed Bardamu, and it has changed French society. As much as the attendees would like to ignore the trauma and brutality of the war, as much as they would like to return to the old ways, they cannot do so. This is particularly evident when Lola and Bardamu pass the shooting gallery. As a soldier, Lola jokes, Bardamu must be “a good shot” (58). Bardamu immediately contradicts her. This is no place to try to impress a woman: For her, the shooting gallery is a fun game; for Bardamu, it triggers terrible memories of the war he tried so hard to escape. To shoot is to kill, whether he is being shot at or doing the shooting himself. Bardamu’s negative reaction to the shooting gallery is emblematic of the broader symbolism of the carnival itself. The carnival represents a time before the trauma, one that the people would like to return to but that they know they cannot. The more they try to make the world just as it was, the more they are reminded of how radically and permanently everything has changed.

Later, Bardamu returns to the same carnival. The contrast between the two visits provides an opportunity to see how much has changed in his life. Previously, he was a traumatized veteran being treated in a psychiatric hospital. Now, he is a fully accredited doctor with his own (albeit unsuccessful) practice. This is much closer to the life the young medical student envisaged for himself before the outbreak of the war. Much has changed, but when Bardamu strolls past the shooting gallery again, he realizes that much remains the same. The shooting gallery is still present and still using many of the same targets. Now, however, small airplanes have been added to reflect the technological advancements brought about by the war. Bardamu is in danger of being thrust right back into his traumatic past, but he navigates the moment by turning to his wry cynicism. He labels the airplanes in the shooting gallery as a symbol of progress, referring to them as “novelty. Progress. Fashion” (277). This description symbolizes Bardamu’s growing detachment from the world, including from his own trauma. He feels the same pain as before, but he uses his cynicism as a coping mechanism, turning the possible trauma of the return to the shooting gallery into a joke. Bardamu’s changing attitude to the shooting gallery and to the carnival as a whole represents his struggles to put his trauma in the past. The targets are the same, they just update for the current moment. The violence—symbolized by the shooting gallery—is just as capable of making progress as Bardamu. Whatever advances he makes in his professional life, he cannot truly escape his traumatic past.

At the end of the novel, the characters return to the carnival one final time. If the previous visit made Bardamu aware of the way in which his trauma would haunt him, his offer to take Robinson, Madelon, and Sophie to the carnival again suggests that he is actively attempting to address this trauma. He is willingly returning to the symbolism of the carnival, confronting the place that reminded him of how difficult it would be to escape his past. In spite of Bardamu’s good intentions (as well as his less than noble intentions), the outing is a failure. Not only does he fail to repair his relationship with Madelon, but he exacerbates the disagreement between Madelon and Robinson. The issues that have caused friction in their relationship are dragged to the forefront, no longer possible to ignore. Just as the shooting gallery made Bardamu confront his difficult past, this visit makes Robinson confront his own mistakes. He does not resolve his past issues in a satisfying way. Indeed, he fails so spectacularly that Madelon shoots him. The return to the carnival is more than just a social failure. The final trip to the carnival becomes the catalyst for self-reflection, an undeniable reminder to Bardamu that he will never be able to outrun his trauma, no matter how hard he tries. If he continues to try, he will leave the carnival like Robinson.

The Trading Outpost

After receiving a medical exemption from the war, Bardamu wishes to get as far away from France as possible. He travels to West Africa, hoping to take up a position in the French colonial apparatus. For a Frenchman like Bardamu, the colonies are an escape route. He sees the colonies as a way to escape the pain, trauma, and responsibilities of his life thus far, effectively ignoring the violence with which the French state subjugates the African people. They are irrelevant to Bardamu’s plans, just as their rights to self-determination are irrelevant to the French empire. The readiness with which Bardamu takes up the assignment to the remote trading outpost represents his disdain for non-European peoples. Bardamu is not shy about his racism, whether referring to the local people with slurs, hoping to benefit from their economic exploitation, or dehumanizing them, even after they help him to escape from the trading post. In this way, Bardamu is representative of the broader French attitude to colonialism in the interwar period. The trading post is a physical representation of this colonialist attitude.

As he is preparing to take up the position at the trading outpost, Bardamu is frequently warned about his predecessor. The man who previously operated the post has gone silent, the Director says, due to his unreliability and poor character. On arrival, however, Bardamu recognizes Robinson. This is the first of many times that their paths will cross. Even in the remoteness of the jungle, they seem bound together. They are both subject to the same forces and the same weaknesses, so there is no coincidence that they find themselves in the same places. This is their second meeting, the meeting that suggests that there is more than mere chance to the crossing of their paths. That they are both drawn to the same trading post shows their similarity in attitude: They both wanted to escape France, and they both arrived at the idea of an escape to the colonies. That Bardamu refuses to condemn Robinson, in spite of the warnings from the Director, symbolizes just how much he understands and sympathizes with Robinson’s actions. The trading post becomes a symbol of their shared mind, a seemingly inevitable confluence of similar characters.

Robinson vanishes soon after Bardamu’s arrival. In spite of everything the Director said to Bardamu about Robinson’s character, Bardamu has no problem with following in Robinson’s footsteps. He too abandons the post. The two men who tried to desert from the army follow one another in deserting whatever duty they have to the colonial forces. However, the departure from the trading outpost is not a symbolic rejection of colonialism for moral reasons. By abandoning the trading outpost so soon after trying to abandon the military, Bardamu is signaling his lack of allegiance to any institution. He is cut loose from any form of responsibility or duty, adrift in the night. Even in deserting the trading post, Bardamu clings to his racist attitudes. He depends on the African people to guide him through the jungle while he is suffering from malaria. He never thanks them, or even acknowledges their help. To him African people are a part of the scenery rather than people in their own right. Bardamu arrives at the trading post, pumped up with colonialist self-entitlement, and he departs it in exactly the same way. As such, the trading post symbolizes his unchanging prejudices. His experiences in the colonies do nothing to change his colonialist attitudes.