The Immoralist (Characters)

Characters

Alcide

Alcide is the youngest son of Bocage, the caretaker of Michel's estate at La Morinière. When Michel learns that Bocage has been poaching on the estate, he decides to join the young man in secretly poaching on his own land.

Ali

Ali is a little Arab boy whom Michel befriends during his second visit to Biskra. Ali introduces Michel to his sister, who is a prostitute. After Marceline dies, Michel sleeps with Ali's sister several times, but soon notices that Ali seems to get jealous of his sister. Michel thus decides to stop sleeping with the girl in order to maintain his relations with Ali. When Ali's sister teases Michel that he is more interested in Ali than in her, Michel reflects, "Perhaps she is not altogether wrong . . ."

Ali's Sister

Ali's sister is an Arab girl who works as a prostitute. On his second visit to Biskra, Michel befriends Ali, who introduces him to her. Michel sleeps with Ali's sister several times after his wife's death. However, Michel decides not to sleep with her anymore, in part because he is bored by her, and in part because he feels that Ali gets jealous of his attentions to the sister. After this, Ali's sister teases Michel that he prefers the little boy to her, and that Ali is the reason Michel continues to stay in Biskra. Michel confirms that she may be right about this.

Bachir

Bachir is a little Arab boy whom Michel and Marceline befriend during their first visit to Biskra. Bachir is the first of the boys whom Marceline brings home to Michel to cheer him up while he is recovering from tuberculosis. On their second visit to Biskra, Michel learns that Bachir has gotten a job as a dishwasher.

Bocage

Bocage is the caretaker of Michel's estate in Normandy. Michel finds Bocage irritating because of his incessant demands on Michel's attention in reporting to him about the managing of the estate. Michel eventually realizes that Bocage is not altogether honest in his running of the estate.

Charles

Charles is the seventeen-year-old son of Bocage, the caretaker of Michel's estate at La Morinière. Michel takes an immediate liking to Charles, and the two of them spend their days together riding horseback around the estate. When Michel and Marceline return to La Morinière a year later, Michel finds that Charles has changed, and he is no longer attracted to the young man.

Daniel

Daniel is one of the three friends Michel summons to visit him in North Africa after Marceline dies, so that he may confide in them by telling his story.

Denis

Denis is one of the three friends Michel summons to visit him in North Africa, so that he may confide in them by telling his story.

Marceline

Marceline is Michel's wife. She is twenty years old when she marries Michel. Although their families had been friends when they were growing up, Michel and Marceline do not really know each other. While they are traveling in North Africa on their honeymoon, Michel becomes gravely ill with tuberculosis, and Marceline is very attentive and caring in nursing him back to health. When he starts to feel better, she brings Bachir, a little Arab boy, back to their hotel to play, as a means of cheering Michel up during his recovery. While the couple eventually befriend a number of Arab boys, Marceline prefers the sickly and weaker children, while Michel prefers the strong and healthy ones.

After they return to France from their honeymoon, Marceline becomes ill with tuberculosis, which she contracted while nursing Michel. While they are staying at La Morinière, Marceline announces that she is pregnant. When they move to Paris, she becomes increasingly ill, soon losing the baby in a miscarriage. While she is still very sick, she and Michel take off again to travel in Switzerland, Italy, and North Africa. Michel insists that they are traveling to areas where the climate will help to improve her health, but Marceline grows increasingly ill as they travel. After they arrive in Biskra for the second time, Marceline dies.

Menalque

Menalque is an acquaintance of Michel who shows up at one of his university lectures in Paris. He and Michel immediately strike up a friendship. Gide based the character of Menalque on his friend Oscar Wilde, a well-known Irish playwright of the time. In The Immoralist, Michel mentions that there had recently been a public scandal and lawsuit regarding Menalque; this refers to a widely publicized trial in which Oscar Wilde was accused of homosexual relations with the son of a wealthy Englishman. In The Immoralist, Michel asserts that the lawsuit and scandal against Menalque were absurd and unfair. When he greets Menalque after his lecture, Michel makes a point of hugging him in front of everyone, demonstrating that he is not ashamed to be associated with him.

While in Paris, Michel and Menalque have several late-night conversations. Menalque tells Michel that he had traveled in North Africa, following the path that Michel and Marceline had taken on their honeymoon. Menalque explains that he had questioned many of the Arab boys they befriended in Biskra, and that he became intrigued by Michel's behavior there. One day, Menalque hands Michel the pair of scissors that had been stolen by the boy Moktir. Menalque tells Michel that he believes in following one's natural impulses, regardless of the judgments of society.

Michel

Michel is the narrator and central protagonist of The Immoralist. Michel's mother died when he was fifteen. His father, a scholar of ancient Greek and Roman culture, raised Michel to follow in his footsteps in devoting his life to scholarship. When Michel is 25, his father becomes gravely ill, and Michel marries Marceline, a young woman whom he hardly knows, in order to please his dying father. Michel and Marceline spend many months traveling in Italy and North Africa on their honeymoon. However, they sleep in separate bedrooms and their marriage is not consummated until two months after their wedding. During the course of their travels, Michel becomes gravely ill with tuberculosis, but recovers under the loving care of his wife.

As his health improves, Michel finds himself focusing on his physical body and sensual experiences for the first time in his life. He experiences this profound change in himself as a sort of rebirth, an emergence of his true, natural self that had previously been concealed from him. At the same time, Michel finds himself attracted to healthy young men and boys in North Africa as well as at home in France. Although Marceline has a miscarriage and becomes increasingly ill with tuberculosis, Michel convinces her to travel with him through Europe and back to North Africa. Soon after they return to Biskra, Algeria, where they had spent much of their honeymoon, Marceline dies. Finally freed from all obligations to others, Michel remains in Biskra for several months. He sleeps several times with a girl prostitute, but soon discovers that he prefers the company of her little brother, Ali. Torn between his natural homosexual inclinations and the traditional societal values with which he was raised, Michel finds himself in a state of personal crisis. He contacts his three closest friends from childhood, begging them to come to his home in North Africa. When the three friends arrive, Michel proceeds to recount to them the story of his experiences of personal transformation, and to express his feelings of distress about how to proceed with his life.

Moktir

Moktir is a little Arab boy whom Michel befriends during his first visit to Biskra. One day, Michel spies on Moktir as he steals a pair of sewing scissors belonging to Marceline. Michel is fascinated by this incident, and decides not to reprimand the boy or take the scissors back. Instead, he lies to his wife about how the scissors were lost. After this incident, Michel finds that Moktir is his favorite of the boys. Later, when Michel is back in Paris, his friend Menalque hands him this pair of scissors, which had been recovered from Moktir. When Michel and Marceline travel to Biskra the second time, Michel learns that Moktir has become a criminal and has recently been released from prison. One night, Moktir takes Michel to a prostitute; when Michel returns home from this encounter, he finds that his wife is dying.

Monsieur D. R.

Monsieur D. R. is the addressee of the letter written by an unnamed friend of Michel to his brother. This letter opens the novel and serves as the frame narrative of the central story.

Unnamed Friend

The Immoralist begins with a letter, addressed to a Monsieur D. R., written by one of the three friends whom Michel had summoned to North Africa in order to tell them his story. The unnamed author of the letter, addressing the recipient of the letter as "my dear brother," explains that he has written Michel's story down on paper, as it was narrated to the three friends, and included his transcription with the letter.