EXISTENTIALIST WORKS

[THE PLAGUE] - albert camus

setting: 1940's in Oran, Algeria

main characters:  Dr. Rieux, Jean Tarrou, Rambert, Grand, Cottard

>DISEASED RATS INFEST ALGERIAN PORT

ORAN - In this ordinarily quiet but friendly town, Algerians are a bit more uneasy than usual.  Although citizens typically keep to themselves, social activity is rapidly increasing among the population of the prominent French port.  Families converse together, as fathers and businessmen carry on careers with a greater than usual air of excitement.

What has caused this sudden unease and discomfort?  Is it the death of a beloved leader?  Or a ravaging sickness among the people?  Death and sickness, yes.  But not among humans.

An overwhelmingly large incidence of dying rats has plagued the streets and buildings of the city on the Algerian coast.  Beginning only in the outskirts of the town, complaints of great amounts of unusually large dead rats in not only alleys and waste areas but also public buildings and gathering places were reported to local authorities.  The rats became a concern only when repeated sightings were reported in big factories and offices of downtown Oran.  The municipality had not contemplated doing anything at all, but a recent meeting was convened to discuss the situation.

Among the citizens, everybody is talking about the rats.  “Are our city fathers aware that the decaying bodies of these rodents constitute a grave danger to the population?”  Questions like this are common among the people.

From April 18 onwards, quantities of dead or dying rats have been found in factories and warehouses.  In some cases the animals were killed to put an end to their agony.  From the outer suburbs to the center of the town, in all their byways where the common citizen’s duties took him, in every street, rats are piled up in garbage cans or lying in long lines in the gutters.

Only recently was an order issued for action of some kind from sanitary services.  The order was transmitted from the municipality to collect dead rats at daybreak every morning, and then to take the vermin by transport of two trucks to be burned in the town incinerator.

The cause of the dying rats remains vague, and the dissemination of information has been minimal.

Investigations show that upon death, infected rats undergo twitching and bodily convulsions, often with emission of blood from the mouth.  The dead rats are usually bloated to twenty-five percent of their usual size.

>SPREADING EPEDEMIC OF UNKOWN DISEASE

AUTHORITIES CUT OFF ALL OUTSIDE COMMUNICATION

ORAN - Men, women, and children are dying in several countries of North Africa, struck down by an epidemic of an apparently incurable disease. Excitement in the French port of Algeria due to the recent incidence of dying rats has dramatically increased, in response to the sudden deaths of several Oran citizens.

Information as to the origins of the malady remains unclear. The epidemic has stunned Algeria, and everywhere people are desperate for an explanation.  Some blame invisible particles carried in the wind, others talk of poisoned wells.

Immediate responses of defense among the Oran population have differed widely.  Some families seek protection by barring their doors and living with the safety of walls.  Others wish to leave home to escape this town of suffering but are unsuccessful in their attempts, put down by the federal government.

Just recently the Prefect issued the order, and since then, Oran has been shut off in all forms of communications from the outside world.  Even the privilege of writing letters has been denied to the public.  Such strict regulations were implemented to obviate the risk of carrying infection outside the town.

Meanwhile, local and prominent Dr. Bernard Rieux has established a treatment center for the isolation of those infected with the disease, now official termed as “plague”.  Rieux created the hospital with the aid of a staff of volunteers, including prominent figures Jean Tarrou and journalist Raymond Rambert.

According to Rieux, two forms of the plague are evident.  The disease is seen in excruciatingly painful swellings, or buboes, that inflate the lymph nodes at the neck, armpit or groin.  A secondary pneumonic form of the sickness has also been apparent among patients, which affects the lungs, causing victims to virtually choke on their own blood.

Literary Criticism: In a world devoid of hope, there is still an optimistic answer to the question of escape form the Plague.

The Plague is Camus's longest and most elaborate work of fiction. To this day, the novel has enjoyed unfaltering success and has been read by several million readers worldwide. The Plague is an allegory on the subject of evil, a reflection on the lessons that World War II taught, or should have taught, mankind. One of the main characters, Tarrou, claims that `each of us has the plague within him; no one, no one on earth is free from it'. The Plague is a search for the meaning of life and an eloquent recognition of collective existence and solidarity.

An unidentified narrator sets out to relate the `unusual events' which take place in Oran, Algeria, in 194-. In April, rats come out to die by the thousands in the streets, houses, and buildings. Soon the people themselves start dying in increasing numbers, and Dr Rieux must fight an epidemic of plague that compels the authorities to seal off the city. All must now learn to live in isolation, `exiled' from the rest of the world, and from this point the narrator uses `we' rather than `I' in his narration. Rieux rejects all metaphysical interpretations of that evil, unlike Father Paneloux, a learned and militant Jesuit, who sees in the plague a divine punishment for human sins. Little by little, all the characters are introduced: Rambert, the Parisian journalist, whose only concern is to escape back to the woman he loves; Cottard, a shady character, who rejoices at the relaxed enforcement of laws during the epidemic; Tarrou, whose notebooks will be another source of information to the reader; judge Othon, who represents the established social order, in the same way as Paneloux embodies religion; Grand, a clerk at the Municipal Office; old Dr Castel, who first encountered the plague in China; an old asthmatic Spaniard, and others.

During the summer, the epidemic is at its worst. Burials are expedited as mere administrative formalities; disposing of the corpses is a major problem; isolation camps are created for relatives of the dead; riots at the city gates are commonplace. All must now come to terms with the plague. Tarrou best represents the new attitude: although a non-believer, he sets up sanitation teams of volunteers, thereby illustrating his moral `comprehension'. There is now `only a collective destiny, made of plague and the emotions shared by all', a life confined to the present with no values attached to anything. In the autumn, while all still work feverishly and wearily without any improvement in the situation, Rambert, who had the opportunity to leave the city, decides to stay because `it may be shameful to be happy by oneself'; the plague is now `everybody's business'. Judge Othon's young son dies in horrible agony while doctors try unsuccessfully to save him by means of an anti-plague serum created by Castel. This death shakes Father Paneloux's beliefs, since the child was obviously an innocent creature: after a confused sermon, Paneloux dies, probably from the plague, but is listed as a `doubtful case'. During an evening together (followed by a temporary and illegal escape to the beach), Tarrou explains to Rieux that even before the plague struck he knew he would always take the victim's side as the only way to be `a saint without God'; Rieux replies that he just wants to be `a man'.

By December, the new serum begins to work. Grand recovers from the fever; however, Othon and Tarrou die. At the same time, Rieux receives notification that his wife, who was away for unrelated medical reasons, has also died. Finally, the plague recedes. The gates of the city are reopened a few weeks later, allowing all those who had been separated for so long to be reunited. Alone, Rieux then reveals that he is the narrator and that he decided to write his `chronicle' because `it was up to him to speak for all', so that other men would know `what had to be done and what assuredly would have to be done again in the never ending fight against terror and its relentless onslaughts'.

The epidemic of plague brings into shocking relief the mortality of men; it makes daily life more perceptible. The style of Camus's writing serves the same purpose: by writing a `chronicle', Rieux displays objectivity and emphasizes factual narration. There are moments of passion, such as the exchange between Rieux and Paneloux at the time of young Othon's death, and the evening conversation between Rieux and Tarrou, but Camus always restrains his lyricism in favour of the logical and the impersonal.

The Plague came under attack from some for avoiding the human side of evil. Rachel Bespaloff, echoing later critics (most notably Barthes and Sartre), noted in 1950 that The Plague `has no symbolic equivalent for the humiliation of the suffering inflicted upon man by man'. She concluded that a moral based upon solidarity means that all `stubborn heroes of The Plague remain subjected to the precariousness which binds them to the we'. In this respect, the allegory falls short of offering an absolute answer to the absurd divorce of man from his environment. More recently, the absence of both female and Arab characters has also attracted critical attention. Nevertheless, Camus's lesson in modesty and pragmatism has not been lost, as the warm reception of the novel attests to this day.

Camus called The Plague his `most anti-Christian' writing: in a world devoid of hope, it seeks to reaffirm human dignity amid the destruction wrought by World War II and its tangible illustrations of the Absurd. Coming after the revelation of the absurd and the need for man to rebel against his estrangement from his world, The Plague stands out among Camus's works as a balanced, yet optimistic, answer. Rieux states this moderately positive view in these terms: `there are more things to admire in men than to despise'. The real hero of The Plague is Grand, the clerk who just does `what has to be done' while refusing to allow the `unusual events' to change his life. Despite the plague, Grand never gives up the quest for the perfect opening sentence to the novel he wants to write. He continues to compile statistics for the sanitary groups. But `this insignificant and obscure hero who ha[s] to his credit only a little goodness of heart and a seemingly absurd ideal' offers man's obstinate yet moderate answer to the absurd.

[THE TRIAL]