Jacques the Fatalist and His Master by Denis Diderot

First published:Jacques le fataliste et son maître, 1796 (English translation, 1797)

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Picaresque

Time of plot: Mid-eighteenth century

Locale: Rural France

Principal characters

• Jacques, a servant and former soldier
• The Master (unnamed), Jacques’s employer
• The Narrator, the ostensible author of the novel
• The Captain, Jacques’s military commander, who influences his fatalism
• The Host, the talkative wife of the innkeeper of the Stag Inn
• Mme de la Pommeraye, an aristocratic widow jilted by her lover
• Marquis des Arcis, the unfaithful lover of Mme de la Pommeraye
• Denise, Jacques’s most important love

The Story:

Jacques and his master are on a journey whose purpose and destination are unknown to the narrator. The latter even scolds the inquisitive reader for wanting to know such irrelevant information as how the travelers met, what their names are, where they come from, or where they are going. Instead, the narrator merely informs the reader that, as the novel opens, the master is not saying anything, and that Jacques is repeating, for his master’s benefit, the fatalist creed he learned from his captain. Everything that happens to people on earth, good or bad, Jacques explains, is foreordained, written on the great scroll “up above.” As an appropriate example, his captain always adds that every bullet shot in battle has someone’s name on it.

Jacques illustrates the truth of the captain’s doctrine by noting the interconnected chain of events in his own life: He joined the army as the result of a quarrel with his father; soon after, in his first battle, he received “his” bullet, which shattered his knee; and had it not been for that bullet, he would probably never have fallen in love. That remark arouses the master’s curiosity, and he asks his servant to tell him the story of his loves to make their journey more interesting.

The telling of that story, like the recurrent discussions of the doctrine of fatalism, constitutes a running theme throughout the novel. During the entire eight days of travel recounted in the novel, Jacques keeps trying to advance his story, but he is constantly interrupted and ultimately prevented from finishing it. The narrator provides a third running theme, periodically interrupting the narrative, as he does at the very outset, to engage the reader in discussions about storytelling in general and about the truth and morality of each story or interpolated tale that comes up during the journey.

The narrator’s account of the journey is frequently interrupted by unexpected events, by digressions in dialogue between Jacques and his master and between the narrator and the reader, and by the telling of apparently unrelated tales volunteered by individuals they encounter on their journey. Some of the tales are brief but bizarre, such as the account of the relationship between Jacques’s captain and his best friend, a relationship based on their mutual passion for fighting duels with each other whenever possible. Others are more elaborate and often comical, such as the story of a Monsieur Gousse who, wishing to live with his mistress unimpeded by his wife, devised a scheme by which he brings suit against himself to force the release of his furniture from his own home; he loses the suit and ends in jail. Still other tales depict the corruption in public morals, as in the tale of Father Hudson, a priest in charge of a monastery, who is considered by everyone in that town an excellent administrator of his institution but who successfully and in secret conducts a life of debauchery involving many women of the town.

The longest tale is told by the host of the Stag Inn, where Jacques and his master are obliged to stay for two nights because of inclement weather. The host, who is of peasant origin and exceptionally skillful as a storyteller, describes her tale as that of a “strange marriage.” The marriage is brought about by an elaborate plot of vengeance, patiently worked out by a widow, Mme de la Pommeraye, against the man who jilted her, the Marquis des Arcis. Mme de la Pommeraye bribes a woman and her attractive daughter, whose circumstances forced them both into a life of prostitution, to appear under assumed names in respectable company, where the Marquis des Arcis will be sure to make their acquaintance. The widow so maneuvers events that the smitten Marquis eagerly agrees to marry the daughter. Thereupon, Mme de la Pommeraye takes her vengeance by informing the Marquis of the true background of the woman he marries. Though shocked and angry at first, the Marquis decides that he can be happy with his new wife. That decision leaves Mme de la Pommeraye feeling cheated of her revenge.

During the last two days of the eight-day journey, Jacques makes rapid progress in the story of his loves, including the ribald tale of how he lost his virginity. He finally tells of his encounter with Denise, who nurses him after his knee surgery and with whom he falls in love. During those two days, the master tells Jacques the sad story of his one great love, whom he lost to a rival. At last they come to a village, where the master wishes to visit the son of the woman he once wooed and lost. As the master dismounts from his horse, he falls to the ground. Jacques admits that he purposely loosened the strap, causing his master to fall. The incident leads to the final debate between Jacques and his master on the question of fatalism and free will. In an unexpected outburst of violence, the master’s victorious rival emerges from the house where his son is living and abruptly challenges the master to a duel. The rival is killed, the master flees, and Jacques is taken to jail as a material witness. Jacques’s final reflections, in jail, are about the prospect of marrying his beloved Denise, followed by uneasy speculation as to whether he can escape the likely fate of all husbands—that of becoming a cuckold. Jacques then falls asleep, reminding himself of the futility of such speculation, since whatever befalls him will have been written “up above.”

Bibliography

Curran, Andrew. Sublime Disorder: Physical Monstrosity in Diderot’s Universe. Oxford, England: Voltaire Foundation, 2001. Examines Diderot’s fascination with anatomical monstrosity and analyzes how he represents the physically grotesque in his novels and other works. Includes bibliography and index.

Fellows, Otis. Diderot. Boston: Twayne, 1989. In this updated edition, the author was able to incorporate the later research on Diderot in general and on Jacques the Fatalist and His Master, which is discussed in the penultimate chapter, in particular.

Furbank, P. N. Diderot: A Critical Biography. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992. Fine biographical study, which includes critical analyses of Diderot’s writings. The study of Jacques the Fatalist and His Master in chapter 24 offers astute treatment of the philosophical issues and of the theories about fiction.

Goodden, Angelica. Diderot and the Body. Oxford, England: Legenda, 2001. A study of Diderot that focuses on his portrayal of the body. Examines Diderot’s fiction and other works to describe his ideas about the relationship of the body to the mind, anatomy, ethical extensions of the body, sensuality, sexuality, and other concerns.

Loy, J. Robert. Diderot’s Determined Fatalist. New York: King’s Crown Press, 1950. The pioneering study that first opened up Diderot’s experimental novel to intelligent critical evaluation of its qualities as a work of art and as a profound philosophical discussion of the nature of human existence.

Rex, Walter E. Diderot’s Counterpoints: The Dynamics of Contrariety in His Major Works. Oxford, England: Voltaire Foundation, 1998. Examines Diderot’s works in relation to his era, including analysis of Jacques the Fatalist and His Master. Includes bibliographical references and an index.

Vartanian, Aram. “Jacques the Fatalist: A Journey into the Ramifications of a Dilemma.” In Essays on Diderot and the Enlightenment in Honor of Otis Fellows. Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1974. Exceptionally clear and elegant essay on Diderot’s uncomfortable awareness of the contradictions in fatalism and determinism as philosophical systems.

Wilson, Arthur M. Diderot. New York: Oxford University Press, 1972. A thorough and scholarly critical study of Diderot’s life and works. Chapter 46 has a fine discussion of Jacques the Fatalist and His Master as an exposition of Diderot’s views on determinism and humanism.