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The Consumption Of Mind In Rieux's The Plague

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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

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