Janine's Lust For Attention In The Adulterous Woman

“The Adulterous Woman” follows the journey of an insecure woman named Janine, as she joins her husband for a business trip in a land full of Arabs. As the story progresses, Janine discovers she is severely unhappy about her marriage. For the remainder of the story, Janine carries a large burden on her shoulders and guilt for not loving her husband. It would be near offensive to say Camus’ story entailed only a simple story of broken romance; therefore, one must investigate Janine’s character even further. One of Janine’s most fundamental traits is her lust for attention. Due to Janine’s dissatisfaction with her husband, she seeks every man she meets, placing large emphasis on minimal interactions such as a soldier offering her a lozenge (Camus, 161).
Realizing she has relied too much on the sleazy attention of the man she no longer loves, Janine doubts the purpose of her life, stuck in a boring marriage. She suffers an existential crisis, not knowing who or what to blame for her unhappiness. Janine loses the sense of value in her life after deciding she is not a visualization of men’s perfect ideal of beauty and seduction (164).
As her husband, Marcel, makes business transactions, Janine is alone and wanders off. At nighttime, Janine sneaks out to make out the breathtaking view of the landscape which shocks her with the sight of Arabs smiling and laughing freely all over the land, properties of nobody or nothing (172). Witnessing how free other human beings are, a sudden cloud of disappointment confines Janine’s mind, though she knows she has limited her freedom by succumbing to a flawed symbiotic marriage. She ultimately decides her happiness is most important and to leave Marcel, not caring for his possible reactions of confusion or depression (177). Additionally, the views of other’s joy move Janine in such a way stirring her emotions, breaking down in front of her husband, but never confronting him, relieving herself from the true desire to be free as an individual momentarily (181). Janine’s character showcases existentialism perfectly; she identifies the meaninglessness of the world and an individual who either entraps their self in the idea of a meaningless world or seeks a purpose to live
happily. She also appears to fulfill the characteristics of Camus’ perfect absurdist hero, seeking value in a purposeless world. The title alludes to Janine as an adulterous woman although she never leaves her husband nor has sexual relations with another man. The idea of sex with another man or leaving Marcel plays a key role in understanding why Janine is adulterous. Janine’s adulterous thoughts about the French soldier or Arab men hardly tore her minimal love for her husband apart, as the reader learns Janine’s lifelong obsession for attention, but instead nature swayed her against Marcel. Each time Janine sneaked out, she emphasized and gave sexual innuendos to aesthetically pleasing natural artifacts, for example “erect palm trees”. At one point, Janine even reports moaning and climaxing outside when the nighttime wind thrust against her as she ran freely from Marcel’s side (179). Janine’s adultery; therefore, is a combination of her lust for other men, eroticism of natural occurrences (Garwood, D), and a force against her own will and desire. Concluding, Camus’ perspective on existentialism is represented as Janine’s submission to her husband represents philosophical suicide, though her desire for freedom exists she does not fulfill it by deciding her husband’s diminutive attention serves her better.