Albert Camus the Plague the

Albert Camus The Plague The Plague is considered to be one of the best works of French existentialist writer Albert Camus, who described the tragedy of absurd and senselessness of modern world in this novel. Camus makes us to know that plague which attacked the city of Oran was an atonement for social alienation, indifference and social inertia of its inhabitants, whose life turned into a monotonic cycle of predictable senseless and emotionless actions.

Plague executes the role of social punishment for Oran's townsmen for their indifference to surrounding, egoism and unhealthy individualism. But nevertheless in the first chapter of the novel we don't observe growing social protest against coming epidemic, but instead it's a confusion caused by pestilence of rats, which is by the way the first sight of plague. People are not even able to strike against plague and the first deaths even don't make anyone to think about future catastrophe.

It becomes obvious that people lost immunity to strike for life and simply to strike against death as for most of them death seemed to be only a logical completion of life. People of Oran begin to waken only when it becomes clear that city is absorbed in plague and when officials decide to close it and isolate it from the rest of the world.

Only the feeling of hopelessness and inevitable death from plague makes people to return to real life as they start to fight against epidemic collectively, supporting each other and enjoying every moment of life. These events discover the most interesting and contradictory concept of Camus humanistic existentialism: to fight death and struggle for life under inevitable death sentence. Solidarity of citizens and mutual desire to fight the epidemic and thirst for living make plague to retreat and to disappear at the end of the novel.

So plague serves as an instrument to make people understand and cognize the real value of live it makes them unite during the most difficult and cruel time of dreadful epidemic. Only handful of people from a big city is able to resist the disaster: doctor Rieux, priest Paneloux, journalist Rambert and some others. Only they are able to make efforts to change at least something in city, where evil is represented by a specific moral condition of citizens who faced the tragedy of plague epidemic.

Step-by-step the city which is closed on quarantine loses its unity, joy of communication as plague promotes disintegration and destroys moral norms. The rebel of Oran citizens which only happens after they lose the hope to be saved and evacuated shows the desire to restore healthy human relations and desire to escape from existing alienation.

That's why after the city was isolated, its citizens unconsciously began to make steps towards each other: they started to seek communication attending cinemas and theatre, where only one movie was shown and only one play was staged, as they missed simple humanism and illusion of happy life. The faster epidemic grew the stronger was the unity of townspeople. It's the main reason why Camus doesn't make an accent on tragedy of any particular death.

A very ironic correlation of life and plague is made by one of Rieux patients for whom plague and life have nearly the same meaning. Plague epidemic is a very talented mystification made by Camus in order to make analogies with real life, where illnesses, suffering and death contribute to the fate of every individual and are integrated into our life. In both cases person loses humanism which plays a fundamental role in resisting cruelty and indifference.

Plague and death can not be either cured by physicians or cognized and explained by Catholic priests. Nobody can give explanation to the reasons of plague as it is as absurd as existence of Oran's townsmen at the very beginning of the novel. The death of the innocent child only deepens the dilemma as neither father Paneloux nor doctor Rieux are able to find any logical explanation to the question why plague invaded the town.

Camus makes us to understand that plague in Oran can be defeated only by mutual effort, by solidarity of citizens and by ability to enjoy life. Neither God nor medicine can help to get rid of it: doctors are helpless and the death of the innocent child makes doubt in God's will even very religious people such as father Paneloux. It's very symbolic that among the survivors there were a lot of cynic, vicious people while a lot of others who were "innocent" and "unspoiled" died.

Camus shows that in order to deserve salvation it's not enough to be a "simply" good but it's vital to live and enjoy every moment of life. Those who try to avoid epidemic and don't pay attention to spread of plague are the first to.