Andre GideÆs philosophy and literary themes were influence to a degree by his digestion of the existential philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. In a review of Nietzsche: The Ethics of an Immoralist, Werner J. Dannhauser (1996) describes the best life according to Nietzsche, one that affirms the ethics of an immoralist, ôNietzsche teaches us that the highest life is the life of human creativity, and that human excellence can be understood and communicated objectively,ö (2). GideÆs The Immoralist depicts the story of a man who travels throughout Europe and North Africa on a much similar quest. An amoral hedonist, he is trying to escape the trappings of conventional morality by completely giving himself over to his appetites or desires, including his sexual predilections. Though based on an attempt to achieve the ôhighest lifeö, MichelÆs flight into the senses produces lethal consequences.
The Immoralist follows Michel from his loveless obligation marriage to Marceline, mainly because he promised his father on his deathbed he would not remain alone. At first Michel is amazed to discover Marceline is an individual in her own right, mainly because of his lack of self-awareness which is also why he misses the homoerotic tendency in his growing eroticism for her. As he tells us of his promise to his father to marry, ôI thought of nothing those sad days, but making his last moments easier; and so I pledged my life without knowing what life could be,ö (Gide 1996, 8). As Michel and his wife travel on their honeymoon trip, he begins to recognize dormant feelings of desire in himself. He believes these are due his wife but they are a symbol of his latent homosexuality. Until Michel will become aware of these tendencies, he cannot discover or be his authentic self. As Norton (1998) maintains, ôWith his awakening to life, he simultaneously falls ill with tuberculosis, and here begin the many equations of repressed homosexualit...