Retour aux sources: crisis and reappraisal in Albert Camus's final pronouncements on justice,

Both personally and professionally, the 1950s proved a difficult decade for Albert Camus. Not only would the controversy surrounding the publication of L'Homme re´volte´ (1951) leave an indelible mark, but also the pressures of history would increasingly impact on his concern for justice throughout this troubled period. This article examines how Camus's moral sensibility is undermined by le drame alge´rien to such an extent that, as the pressures of history and personal circumstance become increasingly intolerable for him, he is forced to undertake a ‘scaling-down process’ of his whole attitude towards justice. Both the ‘Appel pour une tre?ve civile en Alge´rie’ (1956) and the ‘Re´flexions sur la guillotine’ (1957) can usefully be read in this context where, against a more general background of a,retour aux sources, Camus reverts to his earlier ‘person-to-person’ response to perceived injustice as a means, perhaps, by which to reinvigorate his now frustrated moral stance.