The mess starts when rats everywhere die. Plague didn’t change anyone. The Gestapo also captured a great number of activists and “turned” them into informants, often under severe torture. We have to defy the meaningless by creating meaning through action and resistance. May one kill individually innocent human beings, even during a war, with good conscience? The hobby of Tarrou's father, insignificant and seeming strange to others, is definitive. The boy's parents accept Rieux's diagnoses with quiet terror and acquiescence. Free download or read online The Plague pdf (ePUB) book. Tormented by his usual self-doubt, on the eve of its publication in 1947, he complained to a friend that it was a “livre manqué” – a waste of a book. So far, we know hardly anything. But a few days later Tarrou comes down with the disease. His convictions gained him a pariah status within the French Left in the last decade of his life. In the streetcars, people are twisting their backs to avoid contact and thereby contagion. The plague, for the present, offers life to Cottard. Obviously Cottard — criminal, black marketeer, and fugitive — is a dramatic contrast to this infectious weariness, and because of Cottard's uniqueness, Rieux includes a few of the sections of Tarrou's notebooks which center on this fellow. The novel consists of five acts resembling the trajectory of a classic Greek tragedy. The Fall by Camus explores the theme of guilt: the thesis of this philosophical novel in one sentence: we are all responsible for everything. Rieux's response to the evening is given more space here than the brief, ironic asides he has earlier slipped into his narrative. The image Rieux uses during the suspense of Rambert's decision-making is that of a caged animal — not a particularly original image, but excellent for his purpose. It was not long after his "sin = punishment" sermon that the priest became a diligent member of Tarrou's plague fighters. But Rieux wages active revolt. Tarrou's mention of this side of the man's personality and later Rieux's speaking of it suggest that it was not altogether an oddity. On the fourth day, the beasts come out in packs and city officials give orders to collect and burn them in the incinerator. Either it is matter of fact or else mentioned in passing. It is but one sentence about a horsewoman riding down the avenues of the Bois de Boulogne – the opening line of a novel that the clerk has been laboring over with much pain and trepidation. Winter approaches but the plague does not abate. . The universe is not always blatantly superior; it too has its moods and imperfections. The novel tells of a group of men who don’t even try to make sense of a meaningless disease, but instead establish hygiene standards, isolate and care for the sick, develop a … Tarrou's reaction to a court trial before he actually witnessed a session was much like the Oranians' thoughts of death — vague and abstract. Camus joined the French Resistance as chief editor of the underground newspaper Combat in 1943 and became friends with Jean-Paul Sartre. Meanwhile, the rats’ onslaught stops almost as abruptly as it has begun. Removing #book# Tarrou's sympathy for the defendant was very much like that which Camus felt for a boatload of prisoners he saw in the Algerian port in 1938. For the first time, he belongs; he has a niche in the human condition. Some people believe that they keep a cleaner house than anyone else on the block, others can hold their liquor better, and still others believe that they can appreciate a musical performance more sensitively than anyone else in the audience. The quiet night is indeed satisfying, but not absolutely so. When Paneloux is stricken, he abides by his city's regulations and asks to be taken to the hospital, but in the early stages of his sickness, he refuses a doctor's help. He has been as steadfast in his struggle to cure as Rieux has been. Everybody gets ready, Rambert agrees to pay a hefty fee for the service – but somehow the escape plan keeps falling through. Then, as if the bubonic plague wasn’t enough, it’s turning pneumonic, forcing the Prefect to issue new regulations against passing it from mouth-to-mouth. Last Updated on May 5, 2015, by eNotes Editorial. But the doctor suggests he look into this curious rat invasion. Both men had early experienced the conviction that one human being may not demand the life of another. They are a strange kind of trinity: Paneloux, Rieux, and Tarrou. Tarrou visits the stadium with Rambert and Gonzales, two former football players, and the contrasts between the past and the present are more evident because of the presence of these men. Having spent Christmas 1959 with his wife and children in Provence, he set off for Paris driving a friend’s luxurious Facel Vega HK500. Even Dr. Rieux, you should remember, although he had treated victims for several months, had not fully experienced the plague's death throes until he watched the process take place within Jacques Othon. The first edition of the novel was published in 1947, and was written by Albert Camus. At the start of the COVID-19 crisis in 2020, demand was so high that, “On the whole, men are more good than bad; that, however, isn’t the real point. Soon he rose in the ranks of activists fighting the same cause, until he discovered that they, too, were sanctioning death, claiming that they were only doing this to build a new system devoid of murder. In early 1941, he began to immerse himself in the history of plagues to gather material for his next project: The Plague or The Prisoners, as he preferred to name it at first. The symbol is that of the German occupation of France against which Camus fought so heroically during the war. Tarrou's revolt consists in not joining forces with the pestilence. But remember this: the Oranians think of themselves as prisoners, encased within their city; here, they are again imprisoned. But then the journalist visits the overworked Tarrou and Rieux in the plague ward and tells them that he decided to stay: Leaving his friends alone now would be cowardly, and as a coward he won’t be able to look his lover in the eyes. He doesn't know why he sent his wife away. Neither man asks for resignation and both desire active acts of faith. get away from earth awhile And then come back to it and begin over.". The Plague Summary. Tarrou's answer that he is less ambitious is exactly what Rieux said to Paneloux, after the priest had said that his goal was man's salvation. Rereading it during lockdown made people realize what the author had claimed all along: Far from being a narrow tale of Nazi-occupied France, it speaks universal truths about the things that afflict human beings in perpetuity and their inherent ability to rise above them. There seems to be a strengthening of resistance even if it eventually fails. The hospital ward is filling up, so that the authorities are constrained to requisition a school to open an auxiliary hospital. 4.6 out of 5 stars 411. and any corresponding bookmarks? The doctor sees off his ailing wife on the night train, assuring her that everything will be all right. Here, behind barred windows, they are imprisoned within the hospital exactly as they are imprisoned within their city. He cannot loudly preach such promises because he has become uncertain. 78 likes. Nobody, not even Rieux, is willing to help him bend the rules and skip town. The brief theater scene is crucial because unhappiness, sickness, and poverty are becoming Oran's daily tenor and Oranians are therefore seeking out the last bits of pleasure in the city. He wrote large parts of the novel while working for the French Resistance paper. There seems even to be a more satisfying act performed by Rieux and Tarrou than merely "getting away." Here he modifies the impression of a superhuman with devoted perseverance. More cases of the pulmonary type of plague become easier to treat; patients become more cooperative. One seeks salvation for man, one seeks a definition of man through action, the other quests for a godless sainthood for himself. Beauty, after being charred by the summer, surrounds the city of pestilence. The ambiguousness of his death is best interpreted as the result of a conscious will at work. Eventually, though, the number of dead exceeds the capacity of the cemetery, so they utilize the old crematorium outside the gates, east of the town, employing an unused streetcar line to transport the dead to their final burning place. The narrator reveals several unexpected reactions of his own — unexpected because he is usually reticent about his personal life and unexpected because they are confessions of his feelings of loss. The lethargy refuses to lift itself from Oran. At first, few heeded his call – the majority were convinced that Germany would win the war, and they supported Pétain’s authoritarian and anti-Semitic regime. The father is sent to an isolation camp; the mother and daughter are confined to the quarantine hospital. Not long after that sermon, Paneloux dies of plague. Grand shows all the symptoms of plague, but against the doctor’s expectations he recovers. Letters can now be clandestinely sent and received. Summary Read a Plot Overview of the entire book or a chapter by chapter Summary and Analysis. Instead of a rowdy, spirited comradeship, there is a core of silent distrust; anyone may be carrying death within him. Staring at the setting sun he seems resigned, lost, and asking for kind favors. Still, the chronicle of the plague outbreak is only the first of many narrative layers and multiple meanings in this novel. One night, after a tiring day, Tarrou opens up to Rieux, telling him his life story: He grew up in an upper-middle class family, his father being a prosecuting attorney. Finally, the Prefect receives an order to proclaim a state of emergency and close the town. Word Count: 311. "The Plague" is a famous allegorical novel by Albert Camus, who's known for his existential works. Major Themes in Albert Camus's The Plague. Tarrou calls it "taking an hour off for friendship." Because Rieux uses more of Tarrou's notebooks at this point, we can probably assume that the truth about Oran is probably impossible to ascertain if one were to consult its newspapers during the plague period. So when Dr. Bernard Rieux finds a dead rat lying in the middle of his building’s landing, he doesn’t give it another thought. On June 18, General Charles de Gaulle took to the microphone in a London BBC studio and called on the French people to resist Nazi Germany and the soon-to-be established collaborationist Vichy regime under Marshal Philippe Pétain in the south. Rieux notes this fresh quality at the beginning of Chapter 24 and remembers the old Spaniard remarking about its pleasant coolness. First the rats are dying in the streets of the Algerian coastal city Oran, then the plague breaks out. Under the strain of growing deaths and the increasing ineffectiveness of his serum, he feels less and less competent. In this beautiful and haunting passage, Camus articulates what it feels like to be dealing with the plague. From the title, you know this book is about a plague. The move takes everybody by surprise. Tarrou is attempting a mortal sainthood. His father died in World War I when he was an infant. He cannot say whether or not the plague is more fierce than it was yesterday; he can only measure his own competence, and the result is negative. The plague has begun its retreat. The scene is inserted when Rieux is losing his endurance; in addition it regroups — besides Rieux-Tarrou and Rambert, plus Grand, Dr. Castel, and Father Paneloux together as multiple witnesses (and sufferers) of the death throes of M. Othon's young child. Orpheus' laments and Eurydice's vain appeals from Hell are ordinary, common Oranian acts. Now it is filled with people sparring for life. That night people go out celebrating in the streets. For Dr. Rieux, that’s not a question of heroism, but simply of “doing my job”. “The Plague” takes place in Oran, a city that Camus, as a son and partisan of its rival, Algiers, found tacky, shallow, commercial; treeless and soulless. His helping Rieux stems from the monumental emergency situation and from his friendship and respect for the doctor. Similar cases of fever and inflamed lymph nodes start multiplying at a worrying clip across town. Equations add up; they equilibrate and are based on logic. Dr. Bernard Rieux The surgeon — narrator of The Plague.. Jean Tarrou The best friend of Rieux.His notebooks are used as part of the chronicle. He theorizes that he cannot contract the plague because he carries his own death sentence and men never die of two illnesses. In the nearby village of Le Chambon, the Protestant pastor couple Magda and André Trocmé were engaged in saving thousands of Jews from the clutches of the Vichy government, and when confronted by the authorities, Trocmé’s answer was: “I do not know what a Jew is. And Rieux adds his own, remarking that the crematory was blazing as merrily as ever; the plague seems as efficient as a civil servant, he says. After the chapter describing the mass burials, Chapter 21 is probably next most successful in catching our sympathy for the plague victims. All of these characters are called to Othon's home to watch a last-resort experiment of Dr. Castel's new serum on the boy. Still, this wasn’t enough to lighten Camus’ often somber mood: “My book is selling like a sob story for young girls,” he griped. The Rebel is a book by French writer and philosopher Albert Camus. The disgust which Tarrou conveys in recounting the trial proceedings — the euphemisms for beheading, the duty of condemnation expertly pronounced by his father in a matter-of-fact fashion — is found in greater detail in Camus' essays on justice and death penalties in Resistance, Rebellion, and Death. The outside world seems closer in spite of the dreary Christmas season with its empty shop windows, its deserted streets, and the robot-like citizens. He can only believe that God has a reason that is unfathomable but that there exists a holy logic that must be trusted. The people seem to need an external order that is reassuring. Rieux and his mother decide to skirt the rules, let him stay at their house and keep vigil until the end. Doctors, by issuing medicine and performing surgery interrupt God's processes, a heresy. Rambert, it seems, expected a sermon from Rieux; he wanted urging. But troop trains are full of drafted soldiers following orders and taking no pleasure in war. They are like the sea in the sense that it is therapy for Rieux to swim; soon he and Tarrou will renew their determination and perseverance while swimming together, in rhythm. Dying has assumed such major proportions that one can almost say that life seems the exception. Chronologically, Chapter 20 precedes most of 19; the latter, however, was used as an overall review of characters after the crisis, plus the notebook jottings about Cottard, and for a graphic look at one of Oran's centers of pleasure. It’s been translated into more than 30 languages and remains one of Gallimard’s best-selling books of all times. At first the child seems to be coming out of the illness, but then succumbs to it in horrible, prolonged agony, emitting a fierce cry followed by endless wailing. The doctor questions him, testing his sincerity, and says that nothing is worth the exchange of whomever one loves. Man must approve of God's will and make it his own. Chapter 20 is crucial to Rambert's integrity. But there is something that still has a meaning.” That something, among other things, is to resist injustice, help your community and alleviate human suffering. The Plague, which propelled Camus into international celebrity, is both an allegory of World War II and a … He admits that the plague has fiercely exhausted him and that he has had to harden himself as a preventive against collapse. His bare chest is described as glistening with sweat, like polished wood, as he paces. Dr. Bernard Rieux is the first to intuit that things are not right with the city when he notices a sudden spike in the number of dead rats around town. As the disease achieves the quality of an efficiency expert, he is relieved at its leveling out on the progress charts. 79 likes. Dr. Richard proves in this chapter that even an educated physician can become as absurd as the plague. On January 4, 1960, he died in a car crash en route to the capital. 559. Both Tarrou and Rieux believe in and defend the value of each human individual. The next day Rieux receives the news of his wife’s passing. Having grown up in a narrow world of limited words, he relished the intellectual universe that opened up before him. Rieux is not an absolutist in his humanitarianism. He began to dedicate his life to what he considered – and still considers – state-sanctioned murder. Then he suggests to his friend to go out for a swim in the sea. Throughout the 1930s, he worked odd jobs, tried his luck as a teacher, journalist and playwright. In 1941, armed resistance began, with many young Frenchmen joining in disgust: One of their motives was the much-hated “horizontal collaboration,” a euphemism for sexual relationships between German men and French women desperate to feed themselves and their families. Confrontation with such extreme disaster might strike down a man with alert senses and sentiment. One infection immunizes a man from all other infections. Rather than giving in to a false sense of security, we should always be on watch for another wave. The Myth of Sisyphus (Penguin Great Ideas) Albert Camus. The townspeople are confused and Rieux notes the reduced audience for Paneloux's sermon to the men. Yet soon enough, the town is invaded by a repulsive mass of dying rats, often spurting blood and giving off agonizing death-cries in their last moments. The next day a health committee convenes. After the first month of plague, the church authorities organize a week of prayer. The man begs the doctor not to report the incident to the police, but Rieux says it’s his duty to do so. Rieux warns his friend that his chances of surviving this adventure are one in three. Despondency naturally begins to give way to envy and protests. The reason for this particular vigil is much more genuine than the simple disposition of Rieux into a sickroom would have been. The night scene on the terrace, as Tarrou and Rieux relax, is another juxtaposition of a pleasant natural world in contrast with the town, sleeping and dying during the night. Two days later the man is dead. Living has been easy; this phase is for rededication. He realized that he’d had the plague all along. A staunch anti-Stalinist and opponent of capital punishment, he maintained that no end, however glorious, ever justified unethical means to achieve it. He makes afresh start with his sentence. Above all, the priest maintains that God must be loved. Rieux says that he is attempting to be only a man. The intention is clear: Don’t raise unwarranted alarm. Cottard is rather patriarchal in his pity and affection for the townspeople. We, like Dr. Rieux, have seen until now only glimpses of death and last moments — never the full process of death. To keep house during her absence, his mother will join him soon. He asks for complete belief in God or else a complete denial of God, an All or Nothing proposition. He begins to construct sermons from his doubts. Paneloux's faith, however, tests itself even more severely. There too either a priest approved of the gross agony of death he saw as a part of God's good or else he denied everything. Into it, however, can be read all Camus's native anxieties, centred on the idea of plague as a symbol.' His congregation had generally decided in favor of prophecies, numerology, and speculative charms. Both have enlisted as plague fighters, but Rambert's offer was not quite a wholehearted pledge and Paneloux's decision came from Christian duty, not from a love for man or from a crusading spirit of Good versus Evil; his faith is tried in a later chapter. La Peste = The Plague, Albert Camus The Plague is a novel by Albert Camus, published in 1947, that tells the story of a plague sweeping the French Algerian city of Oran. Although Rambert still retains some hope of escape, there are hints in the chapter that foreshadow his decision to stay. Death threateningly crackles around him and the priest knows that inoculations are never foolproof. Rieux uses, as an analogy, soldiers held under continual fire and strain. There seems to be a longer time for looking and contemplation. It had been ousted from civilized countries and had no reason for attacking Oran. Man must not allow unfathomable suffering to lessen his passion for God. If he supported the French underground to demolish, for instance, a troop train he would be aiding his defeated country in its struggle against the enemy. Both men begin to feel that their revolts are becoming obsolete. The book was published in multiple languages including English, consists of 308 pages and is available in Paperback format. Text Complexity; ... View on SparkNotes Share. His faith in divine vengeance is worn thin by the time he witnesses the death of M. Othon's child. Rieux was absolutely correct to juxtapose these two scenes. Even Dr. Rieux, you should remember, although he had treated victims for several months, had not fully experienced the plague's death throes until he watched the process take place within Jacques Othon. Albert Camus, inspired by historical accounts of plague outbreaks and his experience during the Resistance in Nazi-occupied France, answered that timeless question in The Plague: Get up and do something useful together! . Medical aid grows more meager. At first, most restrictions remain in place. This particular plague happens in a Algerian port town called Oran in the 1940s. Absurdity, irony, and incongruity are increasingly the constant atmosphere of the city. Hospitals are usually places of rest where one recovers his strength. Now that we have his story, we can understand the genesis of his early remark that he wants only to find peace of mind; he is haunted by the idea that he might be party to a kind of murder if he actively commits himself His kindness to Cottard, his saying that he gives people chances — these few verbal hints at last take on meaning. There is also a feeling of futility. The authorities declare martial law. Just as the populace looked for logic in the Church, in horoscopes, and superstitions, Richard (and the townspeople, we may assume, had he been allowed to inform them) hopes that an equation can be assumed concerning the plague's progress. The motif of separation is once again used in this chapter. Yet for every German killed, about 50 to 100 French hostages were executed in retaliation. But one day he visited his father in court, and that day changed his life: Tarrou became an ardent opponent of capital punishment. The opera contains the identical elements that the citizens are experiencing. Having moved to Paris in 1943, he joined the Resistance as chief editor of the influential clandestine newspaper Combat. Rambert is physically virile, animal-like, and powerfully built. Then, plague breaks out and continues to worsen until it reaches its climax in part four. Despair sets in along with the merciless summer heat. Rieux clarifies another misfortune of the lethargic state — the slackening of Tarrou's medical crews. It is little wonder that the opera is performed again and again, and is popular and successful during the season of plague. Paneloux, because of the extreme philosophy in his second sermon, is even touched by this quality of the exile. ― Albert Camus, The Plague. Grand goes through many variations of that phrase, explains the pros and cons of a particular word and concludes by saying that, if only he could get that one sentence right, the rest would all fall into place. The Plague by Albert Camus Sunday, October 28, 2012. Yet according to Camus’ friend, the novelist Nicola Chiaromonte, most critics were simply missing the point: “The general public have apparently found in it an answer to their yearning for ordinary humanity and good sense.”, A yearning that resurfaced at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020: Copies of The Plague were flying off the shelves like no other pestilence fiction – even Amazon went out of stock – and many dug out their old dog-eared high school editions. He finished a Master’s degree in Philosophy, joined and left the Communist Party. It asks a number of questions relating to the nature of destiny and the human condition. We must rise up in collective action and resist each recurring wave, over and over and over again. And he resolved to abdicate any cause that claimed human lives in some bogus pursuit of justice. The book was published in 1947 and is considered one of the most important works by Camus. After three dramatic chapters, Chapter 23 begins quietly on All Souls' Day, November 1. Rambert is standing looking front with a 1940s-style microphone in his hand. Another two weeks of waiting grate deeper into his residue of hope, and his long hours on the sanitation squad fatigue him but make him aware of the value of work versus a life of idleness. If the serum is not effective, it is possible that plague will prove to be the victor. Even a greater incongruity, however, than the raincoat costumes in the plague city is the lack of men and women carrying flowers to the cemeteries. His mother, who was half-deaf, worked as a cleaning woman. For both of them, it is a rare and refreshing moment of complete happiness and friendship, a taste of the overwhelming beauty of life and nature. He is trapped within high, sealed city walls and he has tested their strength; they seem as sturdy as the plague. The Prefect and most of the doctors in town are wary of calling the thing by its name. 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