The Confessions

Rousseau introduces the idea of self-love as something natural and inherently good. When humans were in small communities and family groups, this self-love, “amour-propre,” was appropriate and a beautiful part of human nature. However, in this view, when civilization developed, self-love manifested into all types of evil forces—greed, pride, vanity. Rousseau’s own battle with self-love can be seen throughout his memoir and acts in direct contrast to his ideas about the concept. He believes that his father idolized him, and he claims that no other person is equal to his “too affectionate, too loving and too tender heart” (42). Upon meeting Madame de Warens, an encounter he claims altered the course of his life, he spends considerable time detailing his own physical attractiveness. His vanity and extreme self-love disengage him from reality and make it impossible for him to present his memoirs in an objective and realistic way. He embodies the negative aspects of this type of love that he describes as inadequate in his writings—excessive focus on the self and on appearances—without recognizing their defining roles in his own life and work.

In Book III, Rousseau writes his first composed piece, a comedy about Narcissus, a figure in Greek mythology who fell in love with his own reflection in a pool of water.