In 1941, the French writer Albert Camus began
work on a novel about a virus that spreads
from animals to humans and ends up destroying
half the population of a modern town.
It was called La Peste, published in 1947
and described as the greatest European novel
of the postwar period.
Albert Camus was born in 1913 in French Algeria.
He became known for his political journalism,
novels and essays during the 1940s.
His best-known works, including The Stranger
and The Plague, are exemplars of absurdism.
He won the Nobel Prize in 1957 and died in
1960.
The novel is set in the 1940s in the French-Algerian
port city of Oran, described by the narrator
as a unique landscape, in the center of a
bare plateau, ringed with luminous hills and
above a perfectly shaped bay.
Since the modern town of Oran is a port, it
is normally a center of business activity.
Dr. Bernard Rieux is the narrator and main
character of the novel, a doctor who is the
first to notify the authorities of the plague
and urge them to take action.
He chronicles what happens in Oran as a result
of the plague and considers the nature and
effects of human suffering.
Jean Tarrou is a visitor to Oran who is trapped
there when the plague begins, he enriches
Dr. Rieux's account with details he records
in his journal.
Tarrou, who is more philosophical and an atheist,
forms the volunteer anti-plague effort and
works just as hard as Dr. Rieux.
Joseph Grand is an elderly municipal clerk
of Oran who has never been promoted from his
low-ranking job.
His marriage fell into loveless routine, and
his wife left him.
Grand struggles constantly with trying to
express himself, and suffers over trying to
find the right words.
Raymond Rambert is a journalist from Paris.
He comes to Oran to research the sanitary
conditions in the Arab population, but the
sudden, unexpected quarantine of Oran traps
him in the city.
He desperately struggles to find some method
of escape from Oran to rejoin his wife in
Paris.
Cottard is a sinister man who committed an
unknown crime in the past and so lives in
a constant state of paranoia and fear of arrest
and punishment.
He is the only citizen of Oran who welcomes
the plague since the police are too busy to
arrest him and he no longer has to suffer
alone.
Father Paneloux is a Jesuit priest in Oran.
Early during the epidemic, he delivers a sermon
to his confused, frightened congregation declaring
that the plague is a God-sent punishment for
their sins.
As the plague rages on, he modifies this stance,
seeing the Plague as a supreme test of faith.
In the Algerian city of Oran, Dr. Bernard
Rieux notices the sudden appearance of dying
rats around town, and soon thousands of rats
are coming out into the open to die.
The public grows panicked, and the government
finally arranges a daily cremation of rat
bodies.
M. Michel, the concierge for Dr. Rieux’s
office building, comes down with a strange
fever and dies.
More cases appear, and Dr. Rieux and his colleague
Dr. Castel believe the disease is bubonic
plague.
They urge the government to take action.
Finally they close the gates and quarantine
Oran.
The townspeople react to their sudden isolation
with feelings of exile and longing for absent
loved ones, with each individual assuming
that their suffering is unique.
Grand explains to Dr. Rieux why his marriage
failed and Rambert is determined to escape
Oran in order to rejoin his wife.
Father Paneloux delivers a sermon declaring
that the plague is a divine punishment for
Oran’s sins.
Outside, the mood of Oran drifts towards hysteria.
Some people try to escape, and there are scenes
of violence.
The public spends extravagantly on costly
meals and expensive wines at restaurants.
Tarrou organizes an anti-plague sanitation
league, and many volunteers join to help.
Rambert finalizes his escape plan with Cottard’s
help, but when he learns that Dr. Rieux is
also separated from his wife (who is ill in
a sanatorium) he decides to stay and join
the sanitation league.
After several months the public loses the
selfishness in their suffering and recognizes
the plague as a collective disaster.
Eventually, it becomes necessary to bury the
victims in mass graves.
When there is no longer space in the cemetery,
the authorities begin cremating the bodies.
The young son of M. Othon comes down with
the plague and die.
Paneloux is shaken by the child’s death
and he delivers a second sermon, declaring
that the horrors of plague leave the choice
to believe everything or deny everything.
Paneloux falls ill and dies soon afterwards.
Grand falls ill with the plague, but then
he makes a miraculous recovery.
Other patients recover as well, and soon the
epidemic is on the retreat, but then Tarrou
falls ill.
After a long struggle against the disease
he dies and Rieux receives a telegram reporting
his wife's death.
The townspeople slowly regain their hope and
begin to celebrate.
Cottard is upset by the end of the plague,
he goes mad and starts firing a gun into the
street until he is arrested.
Grand writes a letter to his ex-wife and resumes
work on his book.
Rambert’s wife joins him in Oran.
Finally, the people quickly return to their
normal lives.
Dr. Rieux reveals himself as the narrator
of the chronicle, which he wrote as a testament
to the victims of the plague.
He knows the victory over the plague is only
temporary, as the bacillus microbe can lie
dormant for years.
In my opinion Albert Camus’s story can be
compared with the times we are living now.
The Plague should remind us that we can never
be mentally or fully prepared for pandemics
and also, how important are the empathy, the
human spirit and more than anything, the human decency.
