What Role Does Rambert Play In The Plague '?
Camus?s The Plague as a Response to the Absurd
When the 1957 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Albert Camus, the committee awarding the honor cited the Algerian-born Frenchman?s ?important literary production, which with clear-sighted earnestness illuminates the problems of the human conscience of our time.?1 By the time Camus died in 1960 at age forty-six, he had achieved success as a novelist, essayist, playwright, and journalist.2 Although he himself rejected the label, he is often referred to as a philosopher, due to the philosophical content of his work.3 In The Plague, Camus uses the story of a disease-stricken town to allegorically present both the absurd nature of human existence and the different ways in which individuals can understand and revolt …show more content…
against their reality.
In 1943, five years before The Plague was released, Camus published The Myth of Sisyphus, a long essay which has been identified as a ?fundamental statement? of the author?s philosophy.4 In the essay, Camus discusses ?the absurd,? a term he used to refer to the contradiction between the human impulse to ask ?ultimate questions? and the apparent impossibility of finding any satisfactory answers to such questions.5 It is not difficult to imagine Camus?s thought as rooted in the bleakness of his time. In The Theatre of the Absurd, Martin Esslin speaks of this era?s prevailing cultural attitude, observing that its key feature was the sense that the ?certitudes and basic assumptions? of the past had been ?discredited as . . . illusions.? Elaborating, Esslin says, ?The decline of religous faith was masked until the end of the Second World War by the substitute religions of faith in progress, nationalism, and various totalitarian fallacies. All this was shattered by the war.?6 In The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus identifies the ?feeling of absurdity? as the sudden alienation from the universe one feels when one?s world is ?divested of its illusions and lights.? In this condition, a person experiences a sort of exile, an exile ?without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land.? Camus likens this experience to a ?divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting.?7
The events of The Plague take place in Oran, a city on the coast of Algeria, during the 1940s. In introducing his chronicle, the narrator describes its setting unflatteringly. He immediately describes Oran as unattractive and ?a thoroughly negative place.? Going on, he speaks of the meaningless lifestyle of Oran?s citizens; they ?work hard, but solely with the object of getting rich,? and ?love one another without knowing much about it.?8 The humdrum and routine life of Oran?s people is shattered when plague arrives in the town; the epidemic amounts, in a sense, to the breaking of ?the chain of daily gestures? which Camus identifies in The Myth of Sisyphus as the first indicator of absurdity.9 The plague itself is on one level simply a deadly illness. On the figurative or symbolic level, it may be interpreted as having one of several meanings, but its general meaning throughout the narrative is well-summarized by John Cruickshank as ?human wretchedness and pain.?10 Put differently, as Germaine Br?e explains it: ? . . . [the plague] is death, and . . . all that enters into complicity with death. . . . ?11 The narrator states that the condition of the townspeople becomes akin to that of prisoners.12 Indeed, the idea of imprisonment as a symbolic theme in the novel is established in its epigraph, a quotation by Daniel Defoe which reads, ?It is as reasonable to represent one kind of imprisonment by another, as it is to represent anything that really exists by that which exists not.?13 Thus, the prison that is Oran under plague suggests a more universal prison or exile from happiness. Critic Donald Haggis sheds light on this idea when he writes that Oran is a sort of ?closed universe? within which there is no escape from the reality of suffering and death signified by the plague.14
The symbolic role Camus intended his characters to take on in The Plague is made clear by the way in which he created them. According to Germaine Br?e, Camus?s notebooks reveal that the characters represented viewpoints before being developed as individuals.15 Of The Plague?s characters, the most important, for two main reasons, is Dr. Bernard Rieux. The first of these is that Rieux is the narrator of the story, though this is only revealed in the closing pages. The second is that, by Camus?s own declaration, he is the character who most represents the author.16 Rieux?s manner of dealing with the plague, therefore, can be considered the form of revolt endorsed by Camus.
This form of revolt is simple; it is the revolt of a doctor. Br?e writes, ?[Rieux?s] ethics are clear: a doctor fights illness, and to fight illness one must first recognize what that illness is.? In this case, the plague is the illness with which Rieux must contend, and Br?e writes that Rieux understands it to be ?the clear awareness of man?s accidental and transitory existence on the earth.?17 Rieux insists that his work in treating the sick is not heroic, but simply a matter of ??common decency,?? which for him consists in ??doing [his] job.??18 Rieux is not interested in framing his efforts in metaphysical terms: ??Salvation?s much too big a word for me. I don?t aim so high.??19 When Rieux?s friend Jean Tarrou points out that Rieux?s victories over death will never be permanent, Rieux replies that he knows this but that it does not mean that the struggle should be given up.20 This tenacious attitude connects Rieux?s fight against the plague to the philosophical revolt against the absurd. In The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus uses the mythological figure of Sisyphus to typify the ?absurd hero.? Sisyphus is condemned by the gods to roll a rock up a mountain and watch it roll down again, over and over for all eternity, but yet, Camus imagines Sisyphus happy, even though he works ceaselessly without a destiny.21 Similarly, Rieux toils at an ultimately hopeless task, but accepts his situation.
Perhaps more than in any other character, change is evident in Raymond Rambert, a young journalist who makes Rieux?s acquaintance.
Rambert works for a Paris newspaper, and has only come to Oran on assignment. When plague breaks out and the city is closed, Rambert is unable to return home; as he experiences the plague in a land not his own, the narrator calls his an ?aggravated deprivation.?22 Desperate to leave, Rambert attempts to negotiate a release, first lawfully with city officials and then illegally with a group of smugglers. While awaiting escape, he fights the plague alongside Rieux. When Rambert is finally able to work out an escape plan, however, he elects not to go through with it, instead opting to stay and help Rieux fight the plague. He speaks of his change of heart thus, ?? . . . now that I have seen what I have seen, I know that I belong here whether I want it or not. This business is everybody?s business.??23 Rambert?s revolt can be considered twofold. His ultimate choice to remain in Oran and fight the plague is an act of revolt, but, as Haggis observes, so is his desire to ?defy? the plague by ?rejoining the woman he loves, and so affirming the right to human happiness. . .
.?24 Rambert is not the only character who finds himself trapped in Oran by chance. Jean Tarrou is a young traveler who came to Oran before the story begins. In his discussions with Rieux, he reveals a troubled background and a unique understanding of the word ?plague.? Tarrou tells the doctor that he had plague long before coming to Oran and encountering it there; this, he asserts, ?? . . . is tantamount to saying [he is] like everyone else.??25 This cryptic statement suggests that Tarrou does not understand plague to merely be a physical disease, and his life story clarifies this. As a young man, Tarrou lived at ease and made a good start for himself. However, his life changed at age seventeen when he accompanied his father, an attorney, to a trial. Tarrou saw the defendant and was horrified that the death of a human being was being sought. As a result, Tarrou left home, becoming an agitator against capital punishment. He believed that by fighting the established order of society, which to his mind is based upon the death sentence, he would be fighting murder.
This lifestyle, too, collapsed when Tarrou realized his indirect part in thousands of deaths through his approval of the actions and principles that made them inevitable. His admission that he has ??lost [his] peace?? as a result of knowing that everyone, as he sees it, has plague indicates that for him plague is, as Br?e defined it, anything in complicity with death.26 Alba Amoia writes, ?Tarrou firmly rejects anything that causes men to die or justifies the fact that man must die.?27 Tarrou, according to Br?e, differs from Rieux in his desire to purge himself of evil and transcend his human condition.28 This desire is reflected in Tarrou?s remark to Rieux that the only question with which he is preoccupied is that of discovering whether one can be a ??saint without God.?? Ultimately, what Tarrou wants is to cease to be ??plague-stricken,?? for this, he believes, is the only way one can hope for peace or ??failing that, a decent death.??29 Whether or not Tarrou succeeds in recovering his peace is never revealed; he soon contracts plague and dies, one of the epidemic?s final victims, after a valiant struggle for life.
If Camus uses some characters to promote a certain outlook on life, he uses others to portray different attitudes in a negative light. Of those figures, the most prominent is Father Paneloux, a scholarly Jesuit priest. Shortly after the town is closed, he preaches a sermon in which he asserts that the plague is divinely ordained, both as a punishment for Oran?s sins and as a way of bringing its people back to God. Rieux, who hears the sermon, believes that Paneloux can ??speak with such assurance of the truth - with a capital T?? because he has not come into contact with death.30 Paneloux?s turning point comes when he, Rieux, Tarrou, and Rambert witness a plague-afflicted child?s agonized death throes. Paneloux is as disturbed by the event as anyone else, but views it differently compared to Rieux. Paneloux says, ??That sort of thing is revolting because it passes our human understanding. But perhaps we should love what we do not understand.?? To this, Rieux firmly responds, ??No, Father. I?ve a very different idea of love. And until my dying day I shall refuse to love a scheme of things in which children are put to torture.??31 Thomas L. Hanna explains the contrast between the characters: ? . . . Camus has shown us two men who have seen and recognized the same human evil. . . . [Paneloux] has accepted this evil as finally good even though it is beyond his understanding. . . . [Rieux] can only revolt against what he has seen. . . .?32 Following this episode, Paneloux preaches a second sermon; this time, he speaks of what the townspeople, himself included, can learn from the plague. In terms of having to ??work out [their] salvation,?? he says, the problem of evil, specifically of a child?s suffering, puts their ??backs to the wall.??33 He reaches his philosophical conclusion:
A time of testing has come for us all. We must believe everything or deny
everything. And who among you, I ask, would dare to deny everything? . . .
We must accept the dilemma and choose either to hate God or to love God.
And who would dare to choose to hate him?34
Camus uses Paneloux to typify what he regarded as an invalid response to life?s injustice and irrationality. Dealing with absurdity by taking solace in the supernatural is something Camus had already rejected in The Myth of Sisyphus as ?philosophical suicide.?35 In Camus?s view, a person living with the absurd must resist any temptation to make a ?leap? from what he knows to the answers offered by ?religions or prophets,? which are not certain.36
In writing The Plague, Camus made Rieux his narrator and the representative of his own thought, but it is another character who is explicitly given the title of ?hero.?37 This unlikely figure is Joseph Grand. A man with ?all the attributes of insignificance,? Grand had been promised advancement beyond his temporary job as a clerk in Oran?s Municipal Office, but this pledge had never been fulfilled.38 Consequently, he has continued in this ill-paying job for many years, causing his wife Jeanne to leave him due to the passionless nature of their life together.
Grand?s behavior after the epidemic begins is what makes him so admirable. Despite his advanced age, he graciously and unhesitatingly joins Tarrou and Rieux?s volunteer group as a record-keeper. However, months after the beginning of the outbreak, at Christmastime, Rieux finds Grand in tears and staring into a shop window, presumably reminiscing on his youthful life with Jeanne. Grand voices his weariness and then runs away and collapses; he has plague. Remarkably, however, he makes a full recovery. Phillip H. Rhein explains the heroism exhibited by Grand when he writes, ?In simply doing his job well, Grand is faithful to the idea of serving men without aspiring to the eternal or absolute. . . .?39 By having Grand survive his bout with plague, Camus may be symbolically giving this ordinary man?s humble revolt againat sorrow and disease his seal of approval, so to speak; in contrast, Tarrou and Paneloux, who attempt to find solutions to life?s injustice through personal transcendence or faith, die during the epidemic.
After the plague leaves Oran and Rieux has disclosed that he is the narrator, he states that he has written his chronicle in part ?to state quite simply what we learn in a time of pestilence: that there are more things to admire in men than to despise.? Having given this note of optimism, he states that the story he tells is not one of final victory, but only the record of ?what had to be done, and would assuredly have to be done again by all who, while unable to be saints but refusing to bow down to pestilences, strive their utmost to be healers.?40 Here, one can plainly see Rieux describing himself and those like him in terms that draw a parallel between Sisyphus and these ?healers,? all doing their job of holding off suffering and death with as little hope, but just as much defiance, as the mythical man forever doomed to carry his rock. The Plague?s conclusion represents Camus?s invitation to readers to imitate Rieux and push heroically onward through life, however incomprehensible that life may seem.
Ferreira 4
Ferreira 2
Ferreira 5
Ferreira 3
Ferreira 8
Ferreira
Ferreira 6
Ferreira 7
When the 1957 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Albert Camus, the committee awarding the honor cited the Algerian-born Frenchman?s ?important literary production, which with clear-sighted earnestness illuminates the problems of the human conscience of our time.?1 By the time Camus died in 1960 at age forty-six, he had achieved success as a novelist, essayist, playwright, and journalist.2 Although he himself rejected the label, he is often referred to as a philosopher, due to the philosophical content of his work.3 In The Plague, Camus uses the story of a disease-stricken town to allegorically present both the absurd nature of human existence and the different ways in which individuals can understand and revolt …show more content…
against their reality.
In 1943, five years before The Plague was released, Camus published The Myth of Sisyphus, a long essay which has been identified as a ?fundamental statement? of the author?s philosophy.4 In the essay, Camus discusses ?the absurd,? a term he used to refer to the contradiction between the human impulse to ask ?ultimate questions? and the apparent impossibility of finding any satisfactory answers to such questions.5 It is not difficult to imagine Camus?s thought as rooted in the bleakness of his time. In The Theatre of the Absurd, Martin Esslin speaks of this era?s prevailing cultural attitude, observing that its key feature was the sense that the ?certitudes and basic assumptions? of the past had been ?discredited as . . . illusions.? Elaborating, Esslin says, ?The decline of religous faith was masked until the end of the Second World War by the substitute religions of faith in progress, nationalism, and various totalitarian fallacies. All this was shattered by the war.?6 In The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus identifies the ?feeling of absurdity? as the sudden alienation from the universe one feels when one?s world is ?divested of its illusions and lights.? In this condition, a person experiences a sort of exile, an exile ?without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land.? Camus likens this experience to a ?divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting.?7
The events of The Plague take place in Oran, a city on the coast of Algeria, during the 1940s. In introducing his chronicle, the narrator describes its setting unflatteringly. He immediately describes Oran as unattractive and ?a thoroughly negative place.? Going on, he speaks of the meaningless lifestyle of Oran?s citizens; they ?work hard, but solely with the object of getting rich,? and ?love one another without knowing much about it.?8 The humdrum and routine life of Oran?s people is shattered when plague arrives in the town; the epidemic amounts, in a sense, to the breaking of ?the chain of daily gestures? which Camus identifies in The Myth of Sisyphus as the first indicator of absurdity.9 The plague itself is on one level simply a deadly illness. On the figurative or symbolic level, it may be interpreted as having one of several meanings, but its general meaning throughout the narrative is well-summarized by John Cruickshank as ?human wretchedness and pain.?10 Put differently, as Germaine Br?e explains it: ? . . . [the plague] is death, and . . . all that enters into complicity with death. . . . ?11 The narrator states that the condition of the townspeople becomes akin to that of prisoners.12 Indeed, the idea of imprisonment as a symbolic theme in the novel is established in its epigraph, a quotation by Daniel Defoe which reads, ?It is as reasonable to represent one kind of imprisonment by another, as it is to represent anything that really exists by that which exists not.?13 Thus, the prison that is Oran under plague suggests a more universal prison or exile from happiness. Critic Donald Haggis sheds light on this idea when he writes that Oran is a sort of ?closed universe? within which there is no escape from the reality of suffering and death signified by the plague.14
The symbolic role Camus intended his characters to take on in The Plague is made clear by the way in which he created them. According to Germaine Br?e, Camus?s notebooks reveal that the characters represented viewpoints before being developed as individuals.15 Of The Plague?s characters, the most important, for two main reasons, is Dr. Bernard Rieux. The first of these is that Rieux is the narrator of the story, though this is only revealed in the closing pages. The second is that, by Camus?s own declaration, he is the character who most represents the author.16 Rieux?s manner of dealing with the plague, therefore, can be considered the form of revolt endorsed by Camus.
This form of revolt is simple; it is the revolt of a doctor. Br?e writes, ?[Rieux?s] ethics are clear: a doctor fights illness, and to fight illness one must first recognize what that illness is.? In this case, the plague is the illness with which Rieux must contend, and Br?e writes that Rieux understands it to be ?the clear awareness of man?s accidental and transitory existence on the earth.?17 Rieux insists that his work in treating the sick is not heroic, but simply a matter of ??common decency,?? which for him consists in ??doing [his] job.??18 Rieux is not interested in framing his efforts in metaphysical terms: ??Salvation?s much too big a word for me. I don?t aim so high.??19 When Rieux?s friend Jean Tarrou points out that Rieux?s victories over death will never be permanent, Rieux replies that he knows this but that it does not mean that the struggle should be given up.20 This tenacious attitude connects Rieux?s fight against the plague to the philosophical revolt against the absurd. In The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus uses the mythological figure of Sisyphus to typify the ?absurd hero.? Sisyphus is condemned by the gods to roll a rock up a mountain and watch it roll down again, over and over for all eternity, but yet, Camus imagines Sisyphus happy, even though he works ceaselessly without a destiny.21 Similarly, Rieux toils at an ultimately hopeless task, but accepts his situation.
Perhaps more than in any other character, change is evident in Raymond Rambert, a young journalist who makes Rieux?s acquaintance.
Rambert works for a Paris newspaper, and has only come to Oran on assignment. When plague breaks out and the city is closed, Rambert is unable to return home; as he experiences the plague in a land not his own, the narrator calls his an ?aggravated deprivation.?22 Desperate to leave, Rambert attempts to negotiate a release, first lawfully with city officials and then illegally with a group of smugglers. While awaiting escape, he fights the plague alongside Rieux. When Rambert is finally able to work out an escape plan, however, he elects not to go through with it, instead opting to stay and help Rieux fight the plague. He speaks of his change of heart thus, ?? . . . now that I have seen what I have seen, I know that I belong here whether I want it or not. This business is everybody?s business.??23 Rambert?s revolt can be considered twofold. His ultimate choice to remain in Oran and fight the plague is an act of revolt, but, as Haggis observes, so is his desire to ?defy? the plague by ?rejoining the woman he loves, and so affirming the right to human happiness. . .
.?24 Rambert is not the only character who finds himself trapped in Oran by chance. Jean Tarrou is a young traveler who came to Oran before the story begins. In his discussions with Rieux, he reveals a troubled background and a unique understanding of the word ?plague.? Tarrou tells the doctor that he had plague long before coming to Oran and encountering it there; this, he asserts, ?? . . . is tantamount to saying [he is] like everyone else.??25 This cryptic statement suggests that Tarrou does not understand plague to merely be a physical disease, and his life story clarifies this. As a young man, Tarrou lived at ease and made a good start for himself. However, his life changed at age seventeen when he accompanied his father, an attorney, to a trial. Tarrou saw the defendant and was horrified that the death of a human being was being sought. As a result, Tarrou left home, becoming an agitator against capital punishment. He believed that by fighting the established order of society, which to his mind is based upon the death sentence, he would be fighting murder.
This lifestyle, too, collapsed when Tarrou realized his indirect part in thousands of deaths through his approval of the actions and principles that made them inevitable. His admission that he has ??lost [his] peace?? as a result of knowing that everyone, as he sees it, has plague indicates that for him plague is, as Br?e defined it, anything in complicity with death.26 Alba Amoia writes, ?Tarrou firmly rejects anything that causes men to die or justifies the fact that man must die.?27 Tarrou, according to Br?e, differs from Rieux in his desire to purge himself of evil and transcend his human condition.28 This desire is reflected in Tarrou?s remark to Rieux that the only question with which he is preoccupied is that of discovering whether one can be a ??saint without God.?? Ultimately, what Tarrou wants is to cease to be ??plague-stricken,?? for this, he believes, is the only way one can hope for peace or ??failing that, a decent death.??29 Whether or not Tarrou succeeds in recovering his peace is never revealed; he soon contracts plague and dies, one of the epidemic?s final victims, after a valiant struggle for life.
If Camus uses some characters to promote a certain outlook on life, he uses others to portray different attitudes in a negative light. Of those figures, the most prominent is Father Paneloux, a scholarly Jesuit priest. Shortly after the town is closed, he preaches a sermon in which he asserts that the plague is divinely ordained, both as a punishment for Oran?s sins and as a way of bringing its people back to God. Rieux, who hears the sermon, believes that Paneloux can ??speak with such assurance of the truth - with a capital T?? because he has not come into contact with death.30 Paneloux?s turning point comes when he, Rieux, Tarrou, and Rambert witness a plague-afflicted child?s agonized death throes. Paneloux is as disturbed by the event as anyone else, but views it differently compared to Rieux. Paneloux says, ??That sort of thing is revolting because it passes our human understanding. But perhaps we should love what we do not understand.?? To this, Rieux firmly responds, ??No, Father. I?ve a very different idea of love. And until my dying day I shall refuse to love a scheme of things in which children are put to torture.??31 Thomas L. Hanna explains the contrast between the characters: ? . . . Camus has shown us two men who have seen and recognized the same human evil. . . . [Paneloux] has accepted this evil as finally good even though it is beyond his understanding. . . . [Rieux] can only revolt against what he has seen. . . .?32 Following this episode, Paneloux preaches a second sermon; this time, he speaks of what the townspeople, himself included, can learn from the plague. In terms of having to ??work out [their] salvation,?? he says, the problem of evil, specifically of a child?s suffering, puts their ??backs to the wall.??33 He reaches his philosophical conclusion:
A time of testing has come for us all. We must believe everything or deny
everything. And who among you, I ask, would dare to deny everything? . . .
We must accept the dilemma and choose either to hate God or to love God.
And who would dare to choose to hate him?34
Camus uses Paneloux to typify what he regarded as an invalid response to life?s injustice and irrationality. Dealing with absurdity by taking solace in the supernatural is something Camus had already rejected in The Myth of Sisyphus as ?philosophical suicide.?35 In Camus?s view, a person living with the absurd must resist any temptation to make a ?leap? from what he knows to the answers offered by ?religions or prophets,? which are not certain.36
In writing The Plague, Camus made Rieux his narrator and the representative of his own thought, but it is another character who is explicitly given the title of ?hero.?37 This unlikely figure is Joseph Grand. A man with ?all the attributes of insignificance,? Grand had been promised advancement beyond his temporary job as a clerk in Oran?s Municipal Office, but this pledge had never been fulfilled.38 Consequently, he has continued in this ill-paying job for many years, causing his wife Jeanne to leave him due to the passionless nature of their life together.
Grand?s behavior after the epidemic begins is what makes him so admirable. Despite his advanced age, he graciously and unhesitatingly joins Tarrou and Rieux?s volunteer group as a record-keeper. However, months after the beginning of the outbreak, at Christmastime, Rieux finds Grand in tears and staring into a shop window, presumably reminiscing on his youthful life with Jeanne. Grand voices his weariness and then runs away and collapses; he has plague. Remarkably, however, he makes a full recovery. Phillip H. Rhein explains the heroism exhibited by Grand when he writes, ?In simply doing his job well, Grand is faithful to the idea of serving men without aspiring to the eternal or absolute. . . .?39 By having Grand survive his bout with plague, Camus may be symbolically giving this ordinary man?s humble revolt againat sorrow and disease his seal of approval, so to speak; in contrast, Tarrou and Paneloux, who attempt to find solutions to life?s injustice through personal transcendence or faith, die during the epidemic.
After the plague leaves Oran and Rieux has disclosed that he is the narrator, he states that he has written his chronicle in part ?to state quite simply what we learn in a time of pestilence: that there are more things to admire in men than to despise.? Having given this note of optimism, he states that the story he tells is not one of final victory, but only the record of ?what had to be done, and would assuredly have to be done again by all who, while unable to be saints but refusing to bow down to pestilences, strive their utmost to be healers.?40 Here, one can plainly see Rieux describing himself and those like him in terms that draw a parallel between Sisyphus and these ?healers,? all doing their job of holding off suffering and death with as little hope, but just as much defiance, as the mythical man forever doomed to carry his rock. The Plague?s conclusion represents Camus?s invitation to readers to imitate Rieux and push heroically onward through life, however incomprehensible that life may seem.
Ferreira 4
Ferreira 2
Ferreira 5
Ferreira 3
Ferreira 8
Ferreira
Ferreira 6
Ferreira 7