The Immoralist (Plot Summary)

Plot Summary

Part 1

Michel, the protagonist of The Immoralist, has spent his early adulthood as a scholar of ancient Greek and Roman cultures. He describes his marriage at the age of twenty-five to Marceline, a twenty-year-old woman whom he hardly knows. Shortly after their engagement, Michel's father dies. The newlyweds travel on their honeymoon to North Africa, a region that at the time was colonized by the French. During their travels, Michel becomes ill from tuberculosis. By the time they arrive in the city of Biskra, Algeria, he is gravely ill and close to death.

Throughout his illness, Michel and Marceline stay at a hotel in Biskra, where Marceline nurses him. Michel is so ill that he does not even leave their hotel room for a long time. As he begins to recover, Marceline brings Bachir, a local Arab boy, to play in Michel's room and cheer him up. Eventually, Michel recovers enough from his illness to go out for a walk with Marceline in a park near their hotel. When they meet a group of local Arab boys in the park, Michel feels that he would prefer to go there without his wife. He realizes that, as a scholar, he has been living the life of the mind, while neglecting his physical being. Finding a renewed sense of life and a new awareness of his physical senses, Michel determines to devote himself to improving his health.

As Michel's health continues to improve, he begins to take walks alone among the orchards of a nearby oasis, where he meets and befriends more Arab boys. He and Marceline begin to invite the Arab boys to their hotel lodgings to play and eat sweets. One day, Michel sees one of the boys, Moktir, steal a pair of his wife's sewing scissors. Instead of reprimanding Moktir, or taking the scissors away from him, Michel lies to his wife about why the scissors are missing. After this incident, Michel finds that Moktir is his favorite of the children.

After staying in Biskra for several months, Michel and Marceline decide to leave. They continue to travel in North Africa, Italy, and the Mediterranean region, passing through Tunis, Malta, and Syracuse. With his newfound health and excitement about life, Michel finds himself losing interest in his scholarly research. While staying in Salerno, Michel spends many days off on his own exploring the area, leaving his wife behind at their hotel. He becomes very focused on his body and his physical health. He soon finds himself leading a double life. Away from his wife, he continues to focus on his newly emerging sense of self and renewed excitement about life. In his wife's presence, however, he presents a false persona as a loving and attentive husband.

One day, Michel gets into a fight with a drunken coach driver, who had been driving recklessly while Marceline was a passenger in the coach. That night, two months after their wedding, Michel and Marceline make love for the first time.

Part 2

In the spring, the newlyweds return home to France. They spend the summer at Michel's childhood home in Normandy, in northern France, where he has inherited a large estate called La Morinière. Michel becomes acquainted with Bocage, his estate manager. When Charles, Bocage's seventeen-year-old son, arrives at La Morinière, Michel is immediately drawn to the young man, and the two of them go horseback riding together every day. Michel becomes increasingly involved in the management of his estate. Marceline informs him that she is pregnant.

In the fall, Michel and Marceline move back to Paris, where he begins his teaching post at the College de France. In Paris, Michel is bored by the demands of their social life. One day, he meets Menalque, a former acquaintance, with whom he strikes up a friendship. Menalque explains that he has traveled to Biskra and met many of the Arab boys whom Michel had befriended while on his honeymoon. One night, Menalque hands Michel the pair of scissors that Moktir had stolen from Marceline. Michel arrives home that night to find that Marceline has had a miscarriage and is gravely ill from tuberculosis.

When the academic year ends, Michel and Marceline return to La Morinière for the summer. Marceline becomes more and more ill. Michel, meanwhile, spends more and more time with the peasants on his estate. He even joins Alcide, the youngest son of Bocage, in secretly poaching game on his own grounds. He finds himself intrigued by the lives of the peasants, particularly those whose behavior is morally questionable. Although Marceline continues to be very ill, the couple decides to leave La Morinière and travel.

Part 3

Michel and Marceline travel throughout Switzerland, Italy, and North Africa. Marceline becomes more and more ill, while Michel finds himself increasingly full of health and vigor. They return again to Biskra. Michel cares for Marceline during the day, but after she goes to sleep, he goes out prowling the streets at night. He meets many of the children they had befriended two years earlier. However, the boys have become young men, and have gone on with their lives. Some of them have married and found work, while others have become criminals and spent time in jail. Moktir, the boy who once stole the pair of scissors, has recently been released from prison. Michel is disappointed that these boys have lost the health and freshness that had first drawn him to them.

One night Moktir takes Michel to a prostitute. Michel returns home from this encounter to find that Marceline is dying. After Marceline dies, Michel remains in Algeria for three months. During this time, he befriends an Arab boy named Ali. Ali eventually introduces Michel to his sister, who is a prostitute. Michel sleeps with Ali's sister on several occasions. However, Michel soon becomes bored of her, and feels that Ali seems to be jealous, so he tells the girl he no longer wants to see her. Ali continues to spend time with Michel, and to do various errands for him, "in exchange for the odd caress." Afterward, when Ali's sister encounters Michel on the street, she teases him that he is more interested in her brother than in her, and that Ali is the reason he stays in Algeria. Michel's response, which is the closing line of the novel, is "Perhaps she is not altogether wrong . . ."

Media Adaptations

• The Immoralist was adapted as a play written by Ruth Goetz and Augustus Goetz, first staged on Broadway in 1954. This production starred James Dean as an Arab teenager, Louis Jordan as Michel, and Geraldine Page as Michel's wife Marceline.