Hi, my name is Monte Johnson. I teach
Philosophy at the University of
California San Diego and this is the
Fifth and final of my lectures on Albert
Camus' The Plague (La Peste), 1947. I'm using the translation of
Stuart Gilbert published in 1948.
Part 5, the final part coming after
Part 1 which showed how slow the people
of Oran were to acknowledge and accept
the existence of the plague. Part 2 where
we got in-depth character development of
Rieux, Tarrou, Rambert, Grand, Pantaloux and
others. Part 3, the pedestal
chapter, the most horrific and graphic
description of the death associated with
the plague. Part 4 where we show the
coping with the long and tedious aspects
of the plague and how the various
characters change as a result of the
circumstances. In part 5 we finally
have the end, and resolution of it, the
plague ends. If you compare Lucretia's De
Rerum Natura, it ends with the onset of a
plague. Camus' plague begins with the
onset of plague and ends with it being
over, and us passing into a tranquil
state. Some of the main characters by the
end have died, others have survived, but
been profoundly changed; others remain
essentially unchanged. So the beginning,
of the end of the plague, as Dr. Castel's
plague serum seems to be more and
more effective. And the death rates begin
to drop
with surprising cases like Grand. The
sudden setback of plague was as welcome
as it was unlooked-for and the town's
folk however were in no hurry to
jubilate  ... all agreed that the amenities
of the past couldn't be restored at once.
Destruction is an easier, speedier
process than reconstruction. So while our
lives have suddenly been thrown into
tumult, it will be a very long time
before they are restored to normal, if
they ever are. In fact, they never will be.
Official communications now confirm
the popular belief that the victory over
the plague was won, and the enemy had
abandoned its positions. Really however,
it is doubtful whether this could be
called a victory. All that could be said
was that the disease seemed to be leaving
as unaccountably as it had come ...  one's
chief impression, Camus writes, is that
the epidemic had called a retreat after
reaching all of its objectives.
It had, so to speak, achieved its purpose.
The change in the situation with the
plague is mirrored by the minds of the
plague sufferers. So once the faintest
stirring of hope becomes possible for
them, the dominion of the plague is said
to be ended. There are various so-called
symptoms of the growing optimism. Falling
food prices, return to communal living,
the soldiers go back to their barracks,
the nuns and monks to their cloisters,
and so on. Students return to campus and
the dormitories. By January 25 plague is
declared over but out of an abundance of
caution the gates are to be left closed
for two more weeks.
No doubt the plague was not yet ended - a
fact of which they were to be reminded.
Still in imagination, they could already
hear, weeks in advance, trains whistling
on their way to an outside world that
had no limit. So they've been exiled
within their own city, which appears like
a prison; and their own homes, or even
prisons become prisons, within prisons.
And so they imagine the wideness and
infinitude of the actual outside world.
Now very interesting interaction between
the characters Cottard and Tarrou,
that is, between the criminal and the
saint. The narrator consults Tarrou's notes
on Cottard which are interspersed with his
random observations about other people,
for example; Grand, who has already gone
back to work as if nothing happened. And
Rieux's mother whose kindness
Tarrou glorifies. But as the optimism of
the town grows, the criminal fugitive
Cottard seems to be the one person in
the town who've used this with
consternation. When we first met Cottard
he had just attempted to commit
suicide. Everything was fine in the town,
but bad with him. Then when things went
bad in the town, he got better. Now that
they're getting better in the town, he's
going into a worse state. He's been
consulting Rieux about the course of the
epidemic, and he's reassured by any
uncertainty or skepticism, and distressed
by any signs of progress - because they
seemed to indicate that the day of his
punishment, and even possibly of his
death, is nearing.
He is governed by his fear of
punishment and death. By the day the
plague is declared over, January 25, Cottard has become reclusive. On one occasion
he's drawn out and discusses the future
with Tarrou who speaks of a 'returned to
normal' life when Cottard asks him what
he means by this? He says, new films at
the picture houses, meaning new fantasy
images, that people will be able to
pursue. At this point their imaginations
are bleak, inactive, not descriptive, not
vivid at all, but they will have new
imaginings
in due course. But then Tarrou reflects on
whether anything will have changed as a
result of the plague? I'd like to
read his consideration about that. But
Cottard didn't smile. Was it supposed, he
asked that the plague wouldn't have
changed anything and the life of the
town would go on as before, exactly as if
nothing had happened?
Tarrou thought that the plague would have
changed things and not changed them;
naturally our fellow citizens strongest
desire was and would be to behave as if
nothing had changed and for that reason
nothing would be changed in a sense. But
to look at it from another angle, one
can't forget everything however great
ones wish to do so. The plague was bound
to leave traces anyhow in people's
hearts. And though we're in the
resolution, and very relieved to be
hearing about these good signs; we are
again continually disappointed by the
ever-present existence of death. Even
as things return to normal,
there's more death to
come and that makes sense because death
is normal. And Tarrou, whose journal entries
entries end with the observations about Cottard
that I just mentioned, has not been
feeling at all well. And when Rieux is able
to examine him, he diagnoses him with
plague. So, Cottard had almost
survived and made it past the whole
thing, in fact he made it to the point
where the plague is considered over, but
before the town is opened - he's stricken
with it. Rieux and his mother decided to
keep Tarrou at their own house. Serum is
administered to him.
Rieux sits up with Tarrou in the sick bed
and notices the sounds of a normal,
plague free night out of his window.
But within his window, in his house he
dozes while Tarrou is tossing and turning
and suffering and in the early morning
Tarrou ends up breathing a little bit
better
but this appears just to be the typical
temporary remission of the disease. And
by noon Tarrou is again wracked with
disease and convulsing pathetically. His
eyes opened to gaze at Rieux and his
mother less and less. And eventually the
smile which had always been on his face,
is replaced by a new and inert mask - like
face of death. Rieux cries what he calls
tears of impotence. He's profoundly
saddened by the death of his friend;
"this defeat was final, the last
disastrous battle that ends a war and
makes peace itself an ill beyond remedy".
And he says Tarrou had lost the match as
he put it but what had he, Rieux, won? No
more than the experience of having no
plague and remembering it, of having
known friendship and remembering it, of
knowing affection and being destined one
day to remember it. So all a man could
win in the conflict between plague and
life was knowledge and memories. But Tarrou
perhaps would have called that 'winning
the match'. Why would Tarrou call that
'winning the match'? Because Tarrou is a
philosopher, he is an intellectual. What
he values as knowledge. He believes that
knowledge produces virtue. Virtue
produces happiness and tranquility.
He had pursued that knowledge, and
achieved that virtue, not as much as he
would have liked in pursuing a kind of
secular sainthood, but as much as
possible nevertheless. Tarrou's death has a
kind of numbing effect on Rieux which;
"no doubt explains Dr. Rieux's
composure on receiving next morning the
news of his wife's death, which comes
from afar. In the first part, she was seen
off by Rieux, on a train, going to a
mountain sanitarium, to be treated for
some other illness. Rieux of course,
feels enormous guilt that he wasn't able
to help her, or treat her, even though he
spent the entire novel treating and
helping other people. He was not able to
begin the fresh start with his wife that
he had hoped when he saw her off.  The
character Rambert ,reunited at last
with his lover. On a fine February
morning the ceremonial opening of the
gates takes place. Trains arrive full of
people, and depart full of people. Lovers
are reunited and Rambert who spent
most of the novel trying to escape, in
order to reunite with his girlfriend, now
actually feels trepidation
and nervousness about meeting her
in the flesh and blood. As opposed to the
pale abstraction that she's become. As he
has tried to remember her; "if only
he could put the clock back and be once
more the man who at the outbreak of the
epidemic had had only one thought and one
desire: to escape and return to the woman
he loved. But that he knew was out of the
question now; he had changed too greatly.
The plague had forced on him a
detachment which try as he might he
couldn't think away and which like a
formless fear haunted his mind. Almost
he thought the plague had ended too
abruptly, he hadn't had time to pull
himself together.
Happiness was bearing down on him full
speed, the event outrunning expectation".
Rambert's reunion with his lover is
described as decreasing sadness and fear,
decreasing pain, thus increasing pleasure.
This is starkly contrasted with the
grief of those who could not be reunited;
"for these last who had now for
company only their new-born grief, for
those who at this moment were dedicating
themselves to a lifelong memory of
bereavement for these unhappy people".
Matters were quite different, the pangs
of separation had touched their climax
for the mothers, husbands, wives, and
lovers who had lost all joy now
that the loved one lay under a layer of
quicklime, in a death pit, or was a mere
handful of indistinctive ashes in a gray
mound, the plague had not yet ended. But
for Rambert, it has ended but its ending
is not a return to what he was before.
Instead he's a changed man, he's more
detached, he doesn't immediately
pursue his desires, instead he more
moderately pursues them. And by focusing
on other people, and helping other people
as a volunteer for the sanitary squads,
he is able to enjoy the pleasure of
reuniting with his lover and actually
become happy.
As for Rambert and his lover it
specifically said; "for some time anyhow
they would be happy". Now this is
contrasted with Cottard's end. In the final
chapter Rieux reveals that he's the
narrator and he asserts that he has been
reporting facts he's seen them, and not
sort of moralizing about them. Regarding
his own troubles and struggles, he says
that he's 'held his peace' but when it
comes to Cottard he reports some moral
disapproval and an earlier comment of
Tarrou's; "Cottard's only real crime is
that of having in his heart approved of
something that killed off men women and
children. I can understand the rest but
for that I am obliged to pardon him". It
is fitting that this Chronicle should
end with some reference to that man who
had an ignorant, that is to say a lonely,
heart". So Cottard approved of the plague,
because the plague caused a kind of
vicious behavior and character of
everyone, which made him feel at home and
made him an equal. He's an ignorant man.
Ignorance breeds viciousness; viciousness
brings unhappiness, but an unhappy man among
other unhappy people can feel better
about himself. Now Cottard ends up
running amok,
with a gun, and he's holed up in his
apartment, taking shots at the police.
This is the same apartment at which
Grand, his neighbor who originally saved
him from suicide lives. His building is
eventually surrounded by armed police
who bring on a shotgun, machine guns, and
set up bombs to detonate near his
apartment. Eventually he's driven out of
it and led away.
Since Cottard was both ignorant and
vicious, he was unhappy to the point of
suicide at the beginning of the novel.
During the plague, in quarantine, he
flourished; selling on the black market,
evading justice, and so on. And he even
seemed to enjoy a kind of uneasy
happiness. But when things returned to
normal,
he returns to an even worse unhappiness;
a violent and self-destructive one. His
fear of punishment and death actually
drive him to death, murder, and suicide.
Now,
the narrator's end. Over the harbor a
firework display is set off by the
municipality. The town's folk were just
the same as ever it seems and as his
memory of Tarrou, Cottard, his wife and others
fade, the narrator becomes more tranquil.
It's revealed that it's Rieux and he
reveals his motive for compiling the
entire chronicle; "...so that he should
not be one of those who hold their peace
but should bear witness in favor of
those plague stricken people; so that
some memorial of the injustice and
outrage done them might endure, and to
state quite simply what we learn in a
time of pestilence: that there are more
to admire in men than to despise.
Nonetheless,
he knew that the tale he had to tell
could not be one of final victory. It
could only be the record of what had had
to be done, and what assuredly would have
to be done again in the never ending
fight against terror and its relentless
onslaughts,
despite their personal afflictions, by
all who, while unable to be saints but
refusing to bow down to pestilences,
strive their utmost to be healers". I love
this passage because it shows that the
true heroes of the novel have
essentially been the health care workers
and the volunteers that have helped the
health care workers. Rieux has knowledge,
virtue, and happiness and thus he enjoys
a kind of tranquillity and authority. The
very conclusion of the book Rieux's
tranquility and joy will have to be
carefully preserved for it will
inevitably be tested again and again. And
this is the final message of the work;
"and indeed, as he listened to the
cries of joy rising from the town Rieux
remembered that such joy is always
imperiled. He knew that those
jubilant crowds did not know but could
have learned from books: that the plague
bacillus never dies or disappears for
good; that it can lie dormant for years
and years in furniture and linen-chests;
that it bides its time in bedrooms,
cellars, trunks, and bookshelves; and that
perhaps the day would come when for the
bane and enlightening of men, it would
rouse up its rats again and send them
forth to die in a happy city". So that is
literally the last chapter of the whole
novel.
That, be careful people, it's coming
again. We could have known it was coming
again by reading books of history.
Lucretius tells us it's coming again
when he describes how it happened
hundreds of years before he was writing,
in Athens. And plagues do come again, and
again, and have come again, and again, and
are here now and so this fragile joy - we
have to find a way of preserving. And the
means of doing that is knowledge and
virtue. I will give some final
character analyses. First ,about
characters that die.
in the novel Cottard, unlike Socrates in
the Gorgias and Crito. Cottard is
not willing to undergo the punishment
that he deserves, and that would make him
better.
Instead, he escapes punishment but the
result is a temporary and unstable joy
or pleasure, accompanied by a lack of
tranquillity and then ultimately a
miserable, suicidal, unhappiness. As
Epicurus points out, such a person will
be driven mad by the fear of punishment.
And because what he fears in punishment
is ultimately death; his fear of death
becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. In
Hobbesian terms, he's unwilling to
relinquish his right of nature to do
anything he wants including crime and
killing other people. Thus he breaks the
first law of nature; to seek peace by
submitting to legitimate civic authority.
In the end, he is justly incapacitated
and removed from society. Father Pantaloux;
he dies with his faith shaken but still
intact.
This has alienated him from all the
other characters, his friends, and in fact
all other humans. But he must accept the
idea that human suffering, even that of
an innocent child, are caused by God for
some purpose which we can't ever know.
His first sermon was harmful and
contributed to the fear and panic of the
citizens. His second sermon shows that
religion cannot even provide an
effective consolation. Tarrou, like
Socrates in the Gorgias, holds that he
would consider nothing worse than
putting someone else to death unjustly.
And he's tried to structure his every
action in order to avoid wrongdoing, and
thus drove him to the noble actions of
creating the volunteer sanitary squads.
That won for him the friendship and
admiration of Rieux and others. In
Hobbesian terms, he is submitted to the
law of nature but is not entirely
satisfied with the unlimited power of
the political state which is created as
a result. But his embrace of poverty, his
dropping out of society, and his focus on
being a just person allows him to
overcome the fear of death; enjoy true
friendship with Rieux, and die tranquilly,
surrounded by his friends. So three very
different outcomes, of three different
characters die. What about the characters
that survive? First Rambert. Although
like a true epicurean, Rambert has been
led around by his desires. He is
initially misled by them into pursuing
an illegal escape from his circumstances,
but he avoids doing this due to his
shame
and begins to focus on those who are
less fortunate than himself.
Joining the voluntary sanitary squads
and the resulting fellow-feeling,
improves him and he becomes more
virtuous as a result. He enjoys greater
happiness and tranquility when, through
the windfall of fate, he manages to
survive the plague and is eventually
reunited with his lover. Grand like Rambert, Grand changes but less so. In fact,
his steady and almost constant character
allows him to overcome the challenges
which he confronts. Challenges which he
carefully limits in an Epicurean fashion.
So as to not to try to do more than he
is in fact capable of, his constancy of
character and steady tranquility sees
him through even an affliction with the
plague. His eventual overcoming of
writer's block is an indication of his
own self improvement. Not that he's
become much better of a writer, but by
focusing on those less fortunate than
himself, he overcomes the regret and
sadness he was ruminating on about - his
ex-wife. And Grand, the most boring
character by far in the novel had been
called the hero by the narrator, who
denies the existence of heroism. That
narrator turns out to be Rieux and in a
way he is the true hero of the story. He
possesses knowledge, and he exhibits
virtue. Not just prudence but also
temperance, courage, and justice. He
remains tranquil, and even happy, despite
the death of his wife, and best friend,
and despite seeing so much death for so
long. His life has meaning -
it's a meaning that he's discovered and
cultivated himself despite his
exhausting work. Dedicated health care
workers are the true heroes of the plague,
if there are any. Now just a couple of
final political and ethical reflections.
To some extent as I've interpreted the
work, it's an exhortation to knowledge
and virtue, as a means to tranquility and
happiness. These are more than ever
needed when the inevitable crises of
life and crises of the world occur
unexpectedly. Whether these are natural
or artificial disasters and crises. If we
are to maintain our tranquillity, we must
not fear either punishment or death.
Punishment and the fear of punishment we
can avoid by becoming just people. Death
we cannot avoid, but the fear of death we
can avoid by focusing on those less
fortunate than ourselves. And devoting
ourselves to helping them, by being part
of and benefiting from an unjust society,
we are implicated in its injustices.
Moral sainthood and escape from these
injustices is no more possible than escape
from the plague or the pandemic. And yet
the implication is that we must work
ever harder to be aware of how our own
actions
can enable and actually aid evil; being
cavalier about obeying stay-at-home
orders, social distancing recommendations,
wearing masks, etc., means putting other
people's lives at risk unnecessarily. And
even if this is not as Tarrou sees it - a
kind of murder - it is a depraved kind of
injustice the devalues human life and
existence. Thank You
