Themes in Albert Camus' "The Plague." Essay

The plague affected people not only on a physical level but a mental one as well. The mental health of the citizens of Oran was amongst the plague's many victims, it suffered of exhaustion as well as being forced to handle mental confrontations. When the citizens dealt with these issues, some people lost their capacity to love as intently, but overall the general capacity of people to uphold their devotion remained resilient to the challenges the plague provided.

A book of horrors, fear and death. “The Plague” is a book by Albert Camus which weaves these emotions and events into one suspenseful tale. Each paragraph and section is written and structured in such a way as to give the reader insight into the feelings of the victims of the plague, and to show somewhat of a theme. The passage from section 4, part 4, line number 1 to line number 35 gives us a glimpse of the melancholy of the people of Oran to their dead loved ones to the extent that they do not attend All Souls' Day, for they were thinking of them too much as it was. Albert Camus fills this passage with figurative devices, including, diction, personification, pathetic fallacy, metaphors, irony and a turning point. The first two paragraphs

"Albert Camus." Bookmarks (Issue 14). Jan./Feb. 2005: 26-31. SIRS Renaissance. Web. 01 Jan . 2013.

The sanitation of Oran is a significant problem in The Plague. Camus portrays the sanitation of the city as being very deficient in the novel where it is mentioned, “The sanitary department is inefficient, understaffed, for one thing, and you're worked off your feet” (Camus 61). Although there were sanitary services present, they encompassed a poor image, so the townspeople started forming their own voluntary “sanitation squads” (Camus 65) to help clean the city. It is mentioned in the novel that there is a notice outlining a general sanitation program that the authorities have drawn up. It includes a systematic extermination of the rat population by injecting poison gas into the sewers, and a strict supervision of the water-supply. The claim made in Camus’ novel of inferior sanitation of the streets is not the central problem faced in Algeria. The prevalent sanitation problem faced by a vast population of Algeria is their water sanitation. Camus mentions the unsanitary water supply, but bases a larger concern for the cleanliness of the streets. The concern for sanitary water is much greater in the authentic Algerian culture and the government has implemented various programs to conduct sanitary practices in the effort of getting clean water. In addition to sanitary programs being implemented, various sanitation strategy studies have been finalized through the Algerian efforts (“Algeria-Water”). The medical treatment practices conveyed through the novel were also conflicting to the authentic culture.

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 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.

Chapter One of of Jim Murphy’s book, An American Plague, opens with the quote, ‘About this time, this destroying scourge, the malignant fever, crept in among us” (Murphy 1). This quote is accredited to Mathew Carey in November, 1793. The term scourge is defined as, “a person or thing that cause great trouble of suffering,” and the term malignant is defined as, “tending to produce death or deterioration.” These are very strong terms with extremely negative connotative meanings. The figurative language which is evident in the quote at the opening of Chapter One is personification. Carey’s quote give yellow fever an eerie, human-like quality when he writes, “the destroying scourge, the malignant fever, CREPT in among us” (Murphy 1). CArey’s word choices and use of personification help to create a powerful image in the reader’s mind of the threat looming over the city of Philadelphia.\

Camus foreshadows Meursault’s death through the symbols of heat and Salamano’s dog. While observing Salamano and his dog, Meursault notes, “After living together for so long, the two of them alone in one tiny room, they’ve ended up looking like each other…They look as if they belong to the same species, yet they hate each other” (Camus 26-27). The likeness of Salamano and his dog produces the idea of inescapable death for all living things. They have become similar to each other in appearance without noticing, just as they have always had the same end laid out without noticing. Meursault’s recognition provides a sense of the period of existentialism, focusing on the individual, but also contrastingly granting that the individual is part of a whole. However, the nurse acknowledges that all beings have the same fate when she says, “If you go slowly, you

Norman F. Cantor, In the Wake of the Plague (New York: Harper Collins First Perennial edition, 2001) examines how the bubonic plague, or Black Death, affected Europe in the fourteenth century. Cantor recounts specific events in the time leading up to the plague, during the plague, and in the aftermath of the plague. He wrote the book to relate the experiences of victims and survivors and to illustrate the impact that the plague had on the government, families, religion, the social structure, and art.

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 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.

When the plague first breaks out in the town, Father Paneloux is asked to present a sermon. Being a “man of a passionate, fiery temperament” (92), Paneloux “[flings] himself wholeheartedly” (92) into the job that is asked of him. In the first sermon he delivers, Paneloux is confident and sure in every word he utters. Speaking in a firm, and harsh tone, he shouts to the citizens of the town that "If today the plague is in [their] midst” (95), it is because they “deserved it” (94), making him seem disconnected, and accusatory toward the townspeople. Camus illustrates Paneloux’s character as one who has little understanding for the peoples’ suffering, since Paneloux declares that the plague “came from God for the punishment of their sins” (99).

Crosby introduces the novel by detailing the plague seemingly at its worst level. The symptoms of the fever are described,

In his novel The Plague Camus creates characters who are forced to think, reflect, and assume responsibility for living as they battle an epidemic of bubonic plague that is ravaging the Algerian port of Oran. For ten months as the outbreak isolates the city from the rest of the world, each of the citizens reacts in a unique way. Camus’ main characters undergo both individual and social transformations.