Oran

belief in God or in absolute moral standards. Other major themes one finds interwoven into this novel are suffering, separation, sickness, rebellion, sympathy, and mechanisation of life. In the novel an epidemic ravages the commercial port town of Oran, in Algeria. The early symptoms like

The Plague, by Albert Camus, is a story following a man named Dr. Rieux living in the town of Oran on the coast of Algeria, which was a French owned territory in Africa. In this town, a plague begins, similar to that of the Bubonic plague in Europe, and the town is quarantined. The story shows how the residents cope and try to create a cure while surrounded by dying people and a lack of supplies and entertainment. In this novel, he uses the format of a Shakespearean play, with five acts and from

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

Plague is the way Camus treats freedom throughout the book. The people of Oran become prisoners of the plague and the whole city becomes quarantined by the Prefect when death tolls hit 30 people a day. It can be questioned whether they were really free before the plague, considering the way they lived out their lives from day to day. Every day the populace would wake up work and then gamble in the evenings and a lot of people in Oran take their loved ones for granted. Only when the plague becomes really

find a solution. Looking back at happier times and reminiscing on nostalgia can often help a person come to terms with the situations they are currently facing. Like many people in times of struggle, Rambert focuses on the life he had before going to Oran and the love for a women he left behind in order to escape his current circumstances both literally and figuratively. Rambert believes that he, “was brought into the world to live with a woman” (Camus 85) and that he doesn’t belong in the town. Being

as a way to declare that thinking objectively is superior to thinking with emotion. At the start of the epidemic, Father Paneloux was a firm believer of extremes due to his religious beliefs. He gives a seemingly accusing sermon to the citizens of Oran, stating that they had brought the plague upon themselves as a punishment for their sins (Camus 99); however, he also tells the townspeople on the same page that if they are free of sin, “God would see to the rest.” Instead of thinking analytically

paradise does not prevent groundless contexts from unfolding; thus, religion ineffectively evades the Absurd, but bolsters the illogical thinking that it is escapable. Father Paneloux reinforces the theory that God bestowed the plague on the citizens of Oran as a punishment for their sins; he expands that this penalty forces the citizens to confront the ultimate test: whether to accept God or not. In order to rationalize the case of an innocent child’s death, Father Paneloux explains to the congregation

Existentialism and The Plague    In the mid 1940s, a man by the name of Albert Camus began to write a story. This story he called La Pesté. Written in French, the novel became extremely popular and has since been translated numerous times into many languages. This story has been read over and over, yet it tells more than it seems to. This story tells the tale of a city gripped by a deadly disease. This is true enough, but this is not what the novel is about. The Plague can be read as an allegory

however when an epidemic occurs, the way a population copes with the tragedy can vary drastically. Throughout Albert Camus’s The Plague, people like M.Michel, Cottard and Paneloux underestimate the severity of their situation, showing that the people of Oran often miscalculate how dire their case is, or blame it on outside factors, such as other people’s actions; however, it's this underestimation and denial that forces them to realize that sometimes events cannot be avoided or explained. While only being

The Cruel Hand of God: Secular Themes and Compassionate Leadership in San Manuel Bueno, Mártir and The Plague Miguel de Unamuno’s short story San Manuel Bueno, Mártir and Albert Camus’s tour de force The Plague describe towns whose leaders employ drastically different methods to combat their communal maladies. The Plauge’s Dr. Bernard Rieux relies on an unrelentingly harsh process of physical healing, driven not by his empathy for the individual but by his compassion for humanity. Unamuno’s priest