The Power of Language in The Plague
In his novel The Plague, Albert Camus presents a pseudo-historical documentary of a plague that confines and controls the citizens of Oran within their city gates. The plague possesses the power of life and death over the people, as it determines which citizens will face their death or those who work to stop death. These latter men, personified by the character's of Rieux, Grand, and Tarrau, each struggle endlessly to master the plague's power over their lives, even with the realization they may never succeed. For Camus, this idea of "impossible struggle" against an unseen power resonates throughout the novel and reoccurs in another "plague" which these men must contend - the limits of human
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47). Here Camus presents the power of certain words like "syndrome" as their use suggests or outlines a certain course of action for the doctors. Rieux recognizes this power and initially rejects the use of "syndrome" as it would mean almost immediate implications upon his profession as a doctor. Camus furthers this when Rieux considers the use of the word "plague". Rieux hesitates, knowing that this word possesses certain implications that will change the lives of all Oran's citizens through quarantine. Thus for Rieux, "It's not the question of the term I use; it's a question of time" (P.47). In this description Rieux establishes that the real issue of using the term "plague" concerns whether the "time" is right to unleash the word's power to change both their careers and the townspeople's lives. Through Rieux's hesitation in stating these terms, Camus demonstrates how language, like plague, can have the power of life or death over people like Rieux.
However, Rieux also realizes that he will never master or control this power, no matter how carefully he chooses his words. Rieux elaborates upon this in his descriptions of the letters and telegrams he writes as ultimately resulting in "the living words, into which we had as it were transfused our heart's blood, were drained of any meaning" (p.63). Here Camus's beautiful metaphor illustrates Camus' conception of language as a "living" entity that is both
In "The Coming of the Plague" there are many signs that the plague is coming. "Badgers and snakes, abandoning/ Their holes in the field; the fruit gone rotten;/ Queer fungi sprouting; the fields and woods/ Covered with spiderwebs; black vapors/ Rising from the earth". This quote shows some of the many signs that the plague is coming soon. These occurrences represent changes lead to a bigger event. This relates to the meaning,
The plague is a dangerous and deadly disease. The plague is one of the oldest diseases known to the human race. Back when Europe was still in the middle ages all the people including serfs, royalty, jews, and church members were devastated by disease that was unknown to them. The disease spread rapidly through Europe through a variety of means. The plague possesses many names like the black death or the black plague. No matter what the people referred to it as it greatly affected the society in Europe including art, the economy, politics, culture, and religion. The plague is also continuously affecting the planet Earth’s population today.
The Black Plague: The Disease that Changed Millions of Lives In 1348, a horrifying illness swept through Europe, leaving corpses in its wake. This disease lasted till 1351, meaning three years of suffering and agony. This disease had many symptoms, and for these symptoms they had cures, many that were to no avail, and sometimes worsened the state of the sufferer. This disease was referred to by many names, but most called it the Black Plague.
There have been many diseases throughout history. Although not many of them have reached the same magnitude as the Black Death. The Plague was a malignant disease that ravaged cities across Europe killing an estimated 75 to 200 million people in the process (Shipman 1). The Black Plague struck during the early Renaissance and dispersed throughout Europe rapidly. The spreading of the plague resulted in a devastating toll on Europe as well its population, in the end greatly altered Europe and still has a presence in today’s society.
Rieux and the volunteer sanitary squads are in many ways the heroes of the story. They continued to fight against the plague despite being beyond hope of ending it themselves. Their response to this crisis (and the ensuing suffering and death) is the main focus of the book and this response must be shown if the theme is to be accurately
The rats did it! Rats, almost single handedly, killed off about a third of the
Because of the fact that many people in England did not know precisely what was causing the Black Death to transpire, they also did not know how to cure it. In “The Black Death”, many thought that they needed to be sin free or that God needed to forgive them for their sins. This was true for people who resided in England during the time of the Black Death as well. Because they believed that the Black Death was God’s punishment, the only way to cure them of the plague was through God’s forgiveness. The article “Black Death” states, “By this logic, the only way to overcome the plague was to win God’s forgiveness.” Nevertheless, doctors in England would try different procedures to cure victims of the plague as well. The doctors would use
Thesis: The plague was a vicious and terrorizing disease, which left a disastrous impact on the people in Europe as Asia making forcing every citizen to fend for themself regardless of who he or she were. I. The symptoms of the disease were horrifying A. The physical symptoms of the disease were morbid and terrifying. 1.
Orent brings up these other plagues and compares them to her idea of a perfect worldwide pandemic. She believes that to be both deadly and transmissible there needs to be a definite event making ir very hard to achieve. Orent mentions more plagues that have killed millions of people, like the Central African monkeypox virus. While it is deadly, its transmission is easily damaged. The reader, nearing the end of the article, now has a basic understanding of Orent’s views and has a few examples to support her. This creates a feeling of acceptance in the reader’s mind, beginning to leave them with the right attitude about Orent’s ideas. To finish off her point, Orent’s second to last paragraph compares the death of people from human-adapted diseases to plagues. For example, malaria kills more than one million children annually. With the reader’s new ideas on the world’s next pandemic, they can understand that examples like that have a much greater chance of becoming a major
This paper is an informative paper in which this event has not been revised and should not be. It is merely to let its reader know the tragic events in which the plague instigated and the outcome.
The plague is slowly infiltrating the thoughts of the citizens of Oran one by one just as the physical illness has. We have begun to see the psychological sense of the plague through the portrayal of Rieux’s thoughts constantly consumed with the dying rats and the journal of Tarrou filled with narratives of the plague intertwined with normal everyday journal entries. From the beginning of the novel, we see the plague, more specifically the rats, consuming the life of Rieux through his constant interaction with them in his day to day life. The most notable event of the consumption of his brain with the plague is when he goes to check on Cottard. The narrator states that, “in the intervals of the man’s breathing he [Rieux] seemed to hear the
There is a certin unsureness in the circulation and communication of information in A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe. This instability of the language in this proto-novel is caused by the author citing two sides to every point or statement he makes causing contradictions. On top of this Defoe repeats the same points throughout the entire text. This uncertainty helps to make the reader believe the writing is an actual journal as opposed to an edited, actual non-fiction.
The meaning of plague in literature is now different from what it used to be. When the plague was still very common, people saw the word and thought of the illness. Throughout the history of literature the meaning has changed from just being about the illness to now being used to refer to anything long term that cause pain or harm (Dictionary.com). Early books that were written actually during some of the first outbreaks of the plague have a dark humor to them. The Decameron by Giovanni Boccacci is a great example of the dark humor that was incorporated within a book. It is about of a group of people who are escaping from the black death in Florence Italy. It is written in the way of about one hundred different stories all put together to make
Yersinia pestis is a bacterium that has been well known to mankind for centuries. Its mechanisms of survival in wide variety of species are extraordinary. The power of this bacterium is dependent on its manipulation of the immune system of its host’s. Its means of survival in the flea and its use of the flea as a vector to other desirable hosts portray this bacterium’s true capability. This flea is the main cause of the bacterium to other animals, especially humans. However, the bacterium does not just stop here; it uses its coded proteins to inhibit the host’s immune system and the host’s cellular functions to aid in its survival in the organism.
Now the time to extinguish the annoying flame that has burned her for too long it seemed arrived. Did it burden her that much, or was she excusing burden for something else. The word was at the tip of her grasp and no matter how close she leaned it always seemed further away. Never giving up for the first time, she touches it and instantly sees. Being able to see is one thing, being able to understand what is in your sight is another. Scared, she didn’t want him to know. She wanted his flame near her. Selfish thoughts, her actions never helped anyone. To preserve his flame she will do nothing. The secret must remain that. If he got his hands on it, the story would surely break him to pieces. Why must a monster intrigue an angel’s