Society as reflected in Camus's The Plague

Camus -- the Plague

An Analysis of Social Representation in Camus' the Plague

The French philosophical novel of the 20th century was a self-contained worldview, best described by Camus in The Myth of Sisyphus. The worldview was absurdist -- an outgrowth of the demise of old world philosophy: on the one hand was man's desire for meaning, and on the other hand was the overwhelming weight of empirical data coupled with Kantian metaphysics -- the synthesis of which was man's inability to know anything objectively or find the meaning he desired. This impasse was what constituted the absurdist worldview. Illustrating that worldview through the novel was the primary function of Camus. As American novelist Walker Percy stated, "The French have something that is rare… -- a philosophical conviction with novelistic art…The combination is usually fatal, but the French seem to achieve it. Sartre solved the problem of joining art and philosophy in his best work, 'Nausea,' and Camus did so in several of his books" (Mitgang 146). With Percy's assessment in mind, this paper will analyze Camus' The Plague and show how the main characters of the novel represent the whole of society according to the philosophy of the absurd.

Despite the modern world's philosophical loss of universals and objectivity (Weaver 14), the narrator of The Plague attempts to relate the story as objectively as possible -- not even telling us his name (that he is, in fact, Dr. Rieux) until the end.

Likewise, the town (though it has a name -- Oran) is so nearly nondescript that it might just as well be anonymous: as Camus states, "The town itself…is ugly. It has a smug, placid air and you need time to discover what it is that makes it different from so many business centers in other parts of the world" (14). It might just as well be Everytown, as Rieux might just as well be Everyman -- or at least Camus' representation of what every man must be like -- well-intentioned; grounded in scientific inquiry, yet adrift from the philosophical mores and theological tenets that rooted his ancestors in the "age of faith." In Rieux's time, Enlightenment doctrine has displaced religion: identity and ethos, therefore, are bankrupt: "The truth is that everyone is bored, and devotes himself to cultivating habits" (Camus 14). This ennui is the result of what the absurdist philosopher calls the inability to find happiness in the toil of Sisyphus, condemned to roll the rock up the hill only to watch it roll back down again and again. As Camus states: "Happiness and the absurd are two sons of the same earth. They are inseparable. It would be a mistake to say that happiness necessarily springs from the absurd discovery. It happens as well that the feeling of the absurd springs from happiness. 'I conclude that all is well,' says Oedipus, and that remark is sacred" ("The Myth of Sisyphus").

Camus' reinterpretation of drama (comedic as well as tragic) is rooted, therefore, not in medieval scholasticism or Aristotelian universality and catharsis -- but in a kind of Roman stoicism, as Percy attempts to illustrate in his novel Lancelot (Mitgang 147). Like Lancelot, Camus' Dr. Rieux is a stoic of the first order -- one who has learned to accept suffering -- not as a fatalist -- but as one who is resigned and can still find happiness in his resignation, in the optimistic knowledge "that there are more things to admire in men than to despise" (Camus 289). Camus' absurdism is an attempt at the reconciliation of that which is irreconcilable. The absurdist is the Sikh Guru Nanak of the West, who attains his moksha as the Jains do -- through separation from the karmic body (Van Voorst 122). Those who fail to escape their bad karma are, in a way, doomed to repeat the process over and over, whereas those who achieve moksha -- release from the cycle -- no longer see the cycle as repetitious but as fulfilling in itself. As Camus says, it takes an act of the imagination: "One must imagine Sisyphus happy" ("The Myth of Sisyphus").

The characters of The Plague are either capable or incapable of that imagination, and to the extent that they are and do imagine is the extent to which they find peace and happiness. Absurdism, The Plague, and Existentialism are thus intimately united -- and each of the characters in Camus' novel represents a kind of reaction to the revelation that absurdity is the only rational worldview that a member of the 20th century may have. Absurdism is Camus' philosophical tent pole -- and all his characters operate within the shadow of the canopy. According to Camus' concept of how the absurd man should live, one may gauge the reactions of the several characters to the plague that slips into Oran. Their reactions represent (at least) four different ways in which society attempts to deal with life within the absurdist framework.

Rieux, of course, represents the man who accepts the reality -- that the universe is absurd, which is to say that what man desires and what he achieves are disparate. Rieux seeks no answer through faith in religion, nor does he make violent objection to reality through suicide (like Cottard), nor does he attempt to escape or manipulate reality to his own advantage (like Rambert). Rather, Rieux represents the apex of human nobility within the absurdist worldview: calm, rational, kind, scientifically-inclined, given to action and self-sacrifice for the sake of others when it is demanded. Rieux plays the role of physician dealing with the onset of trouble, represented by the plague. Rieux, who takes the time to tell us the story, represents the ideal man in absurdist philosophy -- neither nihilistic nor religious -- but realistic, true, brave, and good. In other words, Rieux is the Romantic hero -- the Roman Stoic who can be moved to compassion and to action and to understanding.

It is Rieux, after all, who first hits upon the idea that a plague threatens the city. He is observant -- not prone to irrational alarm or self-contentment. He sees the signs and rather than attempt to make himself feel better about what is happening or search for a "way out" of the plague -- which may be called "modernity" itself (Solzhenitsyn) -- he allows himself to be inspired by Tarrou, who helps organize a treatment facility. Tarrou's conviction is one of saintliness. Affected by Tarrou's "spirituality" rather than by Paneloux's, Rieux begins to treat the symptoms of the disease: he assists the patients and helps those he can.

Father Paneloux, the Jesuit priest, is Camus' example of what the Russian author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn would have described as the spiritual way out of the absurdist paradigm. But as Camus attempts to illustrate -- this way out is "doubtful" -- both in the sense that faith, in the modern world, no longer rests upon reason (as it did with the scholastics of the medieval age who based their perceptions on Aristotelian logic, which "modernity" rejected when it broke with the "age of faith"); and in the sense that Paneloux's case is doubtful -- literally -- because he refuses treatment for his illness, trusting in God either for a miracle or that his demise is part of Providence's plan. Paneloux's "spirituality" appears to be less convincing than Tarrou's: Tarrou's is giving, while Paneloux's takes away. In effect, Paneloux represents a kind of suicide: an attempt to get away from the philosophical belief that is Camus'.

Thus, it is no surprise that Paneloux should appear presumptuous to Rieux. Paneloux -- the representation of old world (Christian) spirituality -- is dubious (having shown no signs of being infected by the plague), and Rieux chalks him up to an uncertain status within the framework of reasonable reactions to absurdism: Paneloux's reaction to the plague is handicapped by his theological conviction -- so Camus appears to suggest. (Only the philosophical conviction that man is absurd is accepted by Camus, who finds himself neatly living within the confines of the same "modernity" that Solzhenitsyn decries.) The two authors, of course, are at philosophical odds: Camus represents the new, Solzhenitsyn the old. Camus dismisses the latter with the death of Paneloux -- but not, of course, without empathy: after all, Camus wishes to maintain a degree of old world nobility.

That nobility of soul -- of society -- is best characterized by Tarrou, a stranger to the city, who represents a sort of free-spirited morality. Tarrou's philosophical conviction tends toward Christian charity, yet Tarrou expresses no belief in Christ. Tarrou, likewise, is not a philanthropist: his concern is sincere and selfless and his compassion real and not pragmatic. Tarrou is almost a kind of mystical reflection of the old world spirit -- no longer observed in the old world religion, which now attempts to reconcile itself with new world philosophy. Tarrou has no philosophy except a kind of Dostoevskian ideal -- a lovely and enchanting peace that comes from loving intensely all of life and all of humanity, and expressing that love in selfless, cooperative, reasonable, beneficial, and wondering action. Yet, even Tarrou must fall to the plague inevitably. Camus as much as says that while Tarrou's ideals may be beautiful, they are not ultimately the truth: there is no moksha for Tarrou -- only death. Does absurdism expect that one's best course of action is to interact with life at a slight remove -- as Rieux does? No definite answer can be given.