Editing Louis-Ferdinand Céline (section)

=== Themes ===
Céline's novels reflect a pessimistic view of the human condition in which human suffering is inevitable, death is final, and hopes for human progress and happiness are illusory. He depicts a world where there is no moral order and where the rich and powerful will always oppress the poor and weak.<ref>{{Harvp|Thomas|1980|pp=54-58}}</ref> According to Céline's biographer Patrick McCarthy, Célinian man suffers from an original sin of malicious hatred, but there is no God to redeem him. "The characteristic trait of Célinian hatred is that it is gratuitous: one does not dislike because the object of dislike has harmed one; one hates because one has to."<ref>{{Harvp|McCarthy|1976|pp=57-62}}</ref>

Literary critic Merlin Thomas notes that the experience of war marked Céline for life, and it is a theme in all his novels except ''Death on the Installment Plan''. In ''Journey to the End of the Night'', Céline presents the horror and stupidity of war as an implacable force which "turns the ordinary individual into an animal intent only on survival".<ref name=":0">{{Harvp|Thomas|1980|pp=45-46}}</ref> McCarthy contends that for Céline war is "the most striking manifestation of the evil present in the human condition."<ref>{{Harvp|McCarthy|1976|p=239}}</ref>

The individual's struggle for survival in a hostile world is a recurring theme in Céline's novels.<ref name=":0" /> Although Célinian man can't escape his fate, according to McCarthy: "he has some control over his death. He need not be arbitrarily slaughtered in battle and he need not blind himself with ''divertissements''. He can choose to face death, a more painful but more dignified process."<ref>{{Harvp|McCarthy|1976|p=75}}</ref>

Merlin Thomas points out that the Célinian anti-hero also typically chooses defiance. "If you are weak, then you will derive strength from stripping those you fear of all the prestige they pretend to possess (...) [T]he attitude of defiance just outlined is an element of hope and personal salvation."<ref>{{Harvp|Thomas|1980|p=48}}</ref>

Thomas notes that the Célinian narrator finds some consolation in beauty and creativity. The narrator is "always touched by human physical beauty, by the contemplation of a splendidly formed human body which moves with grace." For Céline ballet and the ballerina are exemplars of artistic and human beauty.<ref>{{Harvp|Thomas|1980|p=115}}</ref> McCarthy points out that Céline habitually depicts the movement of people and objects as a dance and attempts to capture the rhythms of dance and music in language. "Yet the dance is always the ''[[Danse Macabre|danse macabre]]'' and things disintegrate because death strikes them."<ref>{{Harvp|McCarthy|1976|p=110}}</ref>