Alex Chaisson
Mrs. Kilburn
English 2 CP
22 February 2016
The Plague and War The plague was one of the most horrific times in history. Lives were lost and the feelings of freedom was taken away from the people. This infectious illness was forced upon people and made them turn to unusual measures. These actions by the people and the spread of the disease relates to the happening in war. However the book The Plague by Albert Camus conveys a different understanding of war, specifically the Nazi occupation in Paris during World War II. The book quite obviously shows that the plague is an allegory of war. The author shows this through description describing the lack of purification, force among the people, and the feeling of suffering.
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Suffering was a constant issue and is a one word to describe what people went through during the period of the plague. Everyone in the area got a taste or glance of what suffering is and what it can be, “A tranquility so casual and thoughtless seemed almost effortlessly to give the lie to those old pictures of the plague: Chinese towns cluttered up with victims silent in their agony; the convicts at Marseille piling rotten corpses into pits; the building of the Great Wall in Provence to fend off the furious plague-wind; the damp, putrefying pallets stuck to the mud floor at the Constantinople lazar-house, where the patients were hauled up from their beds with hooks; the carnival of masked doctors at the Black Death; […] nights and days filled always, everywhere, with the eternal cry of human pain. No, all these horrors were not near enough as yet even to ruffle the equanimity of that spring afternoon”(Camus, 39). Unfortunately, people do not feel sorrow for suffering until it is actually experienced. It is easy to write down the events in history but nobody can really comprehend it until it has been experienced. Which is why the situation in France is an allegory of suffering regarding the plague. France declared war on Germany before the Nazi occupation and before they took the consequences into consideration. On page 170, it shows how the disease of the plague affected the soldiers, “In the same way, whenever possible, small bodies of men had been moved out of barracks and billeted in schools or public buildings. Thus, the disease, which apparently had forced on us the solidarity of a beleaguered town, disrupted at the same time long-established communities and sent men out to live, as individuals, in relative isolation. This, too, added to the general feeling of unrest”(Camus, 170). The bodies started to increase causing the injured soldiers to move to other places, buildings, or other forms of
During the Plague, having death as a constant part of life led to serious social changes in art, religion and relationships. During the time of the plague, art began to incorporate death in almost every form: paintings, music, and literature. Whole communities of scholars were hit by the plague and schools were shut down.
In the year 1348 the world changed forever. The Black Death, which is another name for the Bubonic Plague, laid havoc on the entire world. “The plague chases the screaming without pity and does not accept a treasure for a ransom. Its engine is far-reaching. The plague enters into the house and swears it will not leave except with all of its inhabitants…” (Al-Wardi, #29, 113). The plague did not care if the people were rich, poor, white, black, Muslim or Catholic, it would kill whomever it could. The plague brought out the worst in people because people acted selfishly, people were completely inhumane, and there was no peace.
The word “plague” is defined as a contagious bacterial disease characterized by fever and delirium, typically with the formation of buboes, and sometimes infection of the lungs. The article entitled, “On the Progress of the Black Death”, written by Jean de Venette, a French Carmelite friar who was a leading clergyman around Paris at the time of the Black Death, is a well-known account of the spread of the plague in Northern Europe. In this account, Jean de Venette explained the history of the plague, its causes and its consequences.
The Black Plague, one of the most devastating out breaks in history, is an historical event brought about with a great depression throughout Europe. This plague brought out the worst in mankind during the time the plague ran its course. How do people behave, when there environment becomes life threatening? (Herlihy, 18). The Black Death accounted for nearly one third of the deaths in Europe. Due to the death of many people there were severe shortages in labors, during these dreadful times. There were riots throughout Europe, and the great mortality brought on by the plague ripped society apart. Individuals were fearful searching for explanation, but in the end the plague gave rise to the survivors such as
The book When Plague Strikes, is about 3 deadly diseases. It 's about the Black Death, Smallpox, and AIDS. Each of these diseases can cause a serious outrage of death. The book also tells about how doctors try to come up with treatments, medicines, and antibiotics to try and cure these diseases. All these diseases got the best out of everyone. Some people reacted differently than others with these diseases. All the diseases came in play in A. D. 1347, when the Black Death broke out for the first time in what’s today is know. As southern Ukraine.
The plague, otherwise known as “the Black Death”, brought on much turmoil and suffering for the habitants of Pistoia. Numerous ordinances were put into effect with the primary goal of limiting the spread of the plague as well as to keep the city as healthy as possible. These ordinances typically focused on confinement, i.e. no one goes to Pisa and Luca and no one from Pisa and Luca is allowed to enter Pistoia (ordinance 1), how death and burials are to be processed (ordinances 3-12), and how butchers were to handle their animals and animal carcasses (ordinances 13-19). Essentially, confinement was targeted in hopes of stopping the spread of the infection while keeping the city isolated. Secondly, how the bodies of plague victims and their
The reappearance of the plague virus was utterly unexpected in Camus’ novel. The Algerian government involvement with the epidemic was lackadaisical. They refused to address the new, hastily spreading virus as the bubonic plague. Through this denial the infected city of Oran was completely quarantined. Those that were infected with the deadly virus were transported into sick isolation wards that were equipped to provide patients with immediate treatment and ensure the “maximum prospect of recovery” (Camus 26). The people were isolated in “quarantine camps” (Camus 115), and the majority of those that were infected with the plague died painful deaths. After a prolonged period of experimentation, the serum to cure
From 1347 to 1352 a string of the bubonic plague lay waste to western Europe, killing millions. In Italy, nearly a third of the population died; in England, half. The plague was a looming presence, always in the back of people’s minds. The symptoms of the Black Death caused great strife for westerners. Giovanni Boccaccio, an Italian writer and poet, described the symptoms he saw during the first outbreak of the plague: “Not such were they as in the East, where an issue of blood from the nose was a manifest sign of inevitable death; but in men a women alike it first betrayed itself by the emergence of certain tumors in the groin or the armpits, some of which grew as large as a common apple, others as an egg, some more, some less, which the common folk called gavoccioli.” Both Italy and England desperately searched for answers, claiming that the Black Death was the cause of a higher force, but realising that the squalor of their countries also played a part in spreading the illness. Although Italy and England both had a common explanation for the cause of the plague and they both implemented better public health standards, they adopted different public health practices after the plague.
The plague was a catastrophic time in history, and happened more than once. It took millions and millions of people’s lives. It destroyed cities and countries, and many people suffered from it.
Diseases have always been a threat to humans, all throughout history. One of the most destructive disease outbreaks in history was the plague outbreak which peaked in 1346 to 1353, in Europe, commonly known as the Black Death. This plague outbreak was extremely deadly and killed 30-60% of the European population at the time of the outbreak. The outbreak is commonly believed to have been caused by the bubonic plague, but modern evidence suggests that the Black Death was caused by pneumonic plague, a much more contagious and deadly infection.
The Plague or ¨Black Death¨ was a virus that spread across Europe killing about 60% of the population. The plague's origin was at the time unknown and this brought about many questions. At this time, people did not have basic necessities such as proper hygiene and medicine. Therefore there was fear, superstitions as well as conspiracy, and there were also some who realized that they could gain from the deaths of those around them.
The plague caused people to shun their family members, friends, and pretty much anyone who was associated with the disease and “abhor all contact with the sick and all that belonged to them, thinking thereby
The Great Plague was a pandemic that killed many people, and for the people from the olden times the plague equaled painful death; it was torture. As a result, many people categorize ‘the Great Plague’ as a catastrophe that had caused huge damage in Europe, but without this epidemic, we many not have had substantial changes that lead us to the modern day we have now.
The Plague (French, La Peste) is a novel written by Albert Camus that is about an epidemic of bubonic plague. The Plague is set in a small Mediterranean town in North Africa called Oran. Dr. Bernard Rieux, one of the main characters, describes it as an ugly town. Oran’s inhabitants are boring people who appear to live, for the most part, habitual lives. The main focus of the town is money. “…everyone is bored, and devotes himself to cultivating habits. Our citizens work hard, but solely with the object of getting rich. Their chief interest is in commerce, and their chief aim in life is, as they call it, 'doing business’” (Camus 4). The citizens’ unawareness of life’s riches and pleasures show their susceptibility to the oncoming plague.
While man may have innate goodness, what Camus saw in the world more often was indifference, inaction. Mankind failed to act on this goodness. Camus addresses this indifference in The Plague. Camus wrote this novel during a tumultuous time in history, World War II. Even before the war had begun, Camus saw this indifference. Camus watched as the nations of Western Europe sat idly by as Hitler's Germany seized lands, building his Reich. These lands believed they could ignore the problems Hitler was causing; they believed they could "appease" Hitler and leave it at that. Suddenly, France had fallen under German control and England was at the mercy of German bombers. These events helped to prompt Camus into writing The Plague. The war which Camus witnessed was transformed into the guise of a deadly disease. However, Camus does not merely attack the events of one war, nor