Narrative & Plot in The Plague

In his novel The Plague, Nobel Prize-winning author Albert Camus sets out his vision of life in a dramatic tableau that embraces both religious and humanistic versions of existentialism, his personal philosophy of choice. In the philosophy of existentialism as perceived by Camus, one is ennobled by making moral choices in the face of an indifferent, possibly even absurd, universe. That universe can be the creation of God - Camus is agnostic on that point in The Plague - or it can be an entirely whimsical chaos. Camus the artist is not prepared to make that final decision in The Plague, nor does he particularly imply that it matters. In The Plague the results are the same - whether God, Fate or Chaos rules. The only thing that matters is one's decision to act morally.

The plot of The Plague is fashioned as an episodic narrative recounting the progress of an epidemic as it develops, holds captive and, finally, departs from the fictional North African city of Oran in French Algeria circa 1936 or 1946. Although the novel was written and copyrighted in 1946-47, Camus is deliberately vague about the time frame: the colonial city he describes could be a pre-World War II locale or post-War. There is no mention of the War at all, which would seem strange coming from an author who was himself born in Algeria, was a journalist there, then went on to become a leader in the French Resistance in Paris, writing their underground newspaper. But the important issue of Camus' novel

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to hundreds weekly, then hundreds daily. A third of the way into the story a new character enters: Father Paneloux, a prist who has spent the majority of his life in academia. Father Paneloux offers the citizens of Oran an extreme, yet traditional sermon as comfort - that the plague is God's way of trying men's souls. All men are deserving of punishment, Father Paneloux asserts, yet God's mercy spares most until the hour of judgement after their death. "My brothers, a time of testing has come for us all. We must believe everything or deny everything. And who among you, I ask, would dare to deny everything?" (224) This plague is to remind those who have forgotten God that His mercy is necessary. For the middle third of the narrative, The Plague alternates among several characters, all held together by a connection with Dr. Rieux and his futile efforts to treat victims of the plague. Tarrou, the visiting man of independent means, offers to set up and lead voluntary "sanitation squads," a dangerous enterprise where men will clean up after those infected with the virus. Tarrou reveals himself as a disillusioned humanist. His father had been a well-meaning public prosecutor, but Tarrou had come to feel for the accused

Category: Literature - N