Camus' The Plague & Portrayal of Plagues in Society

Within the confines of collective memory in western society, one of the most traumatic events that can stream through a population is plague. The sociological and psychological consequences of plague transcends logic, and becomes particularly relevant in the contemporary world with the media attention given to modern diseases for which there are no cures.

One of the most famous plagues, "The Black Death," first swept through Europe in the midfourteenth century. This plague was a combination of bubonic and pneumonic plague, and as a calamity was comparable in terms of death and destruction, with the two world wars of the twentieth century.

This paper will use the 1947 book by Albert Camus, The Plague, as a case study in the portrayal of plagues in modern societies. After briefly summarizing the book, the paper will look into the basic historical accuracy of the novel, with particular emphasis on etiology, epidemiology, and clinical causation. The paper will then analyze the historical validity of Camus' portrayal of plague looking at administrative policies, public health measures, economic consequences, and sociological and psychological reactions to the epidemic. Finally, the paper will conclude by assessing the novel's place as both a work of fiction and a psychohistory of events that stress population groupings.

Albert Camus was born in 1913 and was an Algerianborn French philosopher, novelist, dramatist, and journalist. He is known as an existentialist, and had

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Category: Literature - C