Persistence of Camus

In baseball, coaches and umpires alike are known for their unswayable opinions. Despite arguments and dirt-kicking, the two will hold fast to their respective rulings. This also persists for literary critics and their views on an authors works. Albert Camus, the French existentialist writer, receives many interpretations of his work, which often conflict with one another. Many, however, uphold the uniform view on his basic theme of obstinacy. In his collection of short stories, Exile and the Kingdom, and his novel, The Plague, Camus undoubtedly suggests mans inherent Armistead 2 stubbornness often creates such unrealistic visions, which can impede appropriate decision-making. Donald Lazere agrees in his essay, The Unique Creation of Albert Camus, that Camus follows the general theme of mens flight from rebellion and freedom in several of his stories in his final work of fiction, Exile and the Kingdom (Bryfonski 48). Characters from this collection refuse to rebel from their own beliefs and instead stubbornly adhere to their philosophies. Jean-Paul Sartre, a one time friend turned enemy of Camus, mentions in An Explication of The Stranger, that the characters in Exile and the Kingdom are literally or figuratively foreigner[s] and because of this they have divided loyaltiesisolated in the midst of society (Bryfonski 114). Amongst all others around them, these characters retain their own unyielding traits and ideas, refusing to conform. In the short story The Guest, the schoolteacher, Daru, refuses to transfer a criminal Arab over to the authorities in a time of war. Instead, as Phillip H. Rhein illustrates in Albert Camus, Daru leaves the Arab to make

his own decision. Despite the circumstance of war, where many assume jobs not of their norm, Daru defies the gendarme and practices his own philosophy (125). After a failed workers strike in The Silent Men, the cooper[s] could not change [their] trade (Rhein 123) for you dont change trades when youve gone through the trouble of learning one (Camus, Exile and the Kingdom 65). Interestingly, the coopers maintain their profession despite the low wages and poor working conditions. As creatures of habit, they refuse to change or rebel from the norm for fear of the unknown. As a result, the coopers work laboriously without talking and become exiled from their common enemy, the boss. This solitude, however, as Lazere puts it, can become a source of men recognizing their common condition (Bryfonski, 68). Their common condition is their inability to change or see other points of view. Evidence of many men in exile all retaining their own beliefs appears in the novel, The Plague. Selena Ward notes, in Sparknotes on The Plague, an interesting irony that, while the quarantine takes away the characters freedom, they never really lived freely before the disease. The citizens of Oran were always unconsciously enslaved to their habits. The character Joseph Grand has, probably, the worst habit: the obstinate desire to find the right words. He refuses to express his thought and ideas, while hiding behind the guise of perfection. Meanwhile, his fraternal exile mate, Father Paneloux, suffers from his undying faith toward God. Paneloux demand[s] that man should put aside his desire for rational explanations and to accept Gods will (Rhein 59). The Fathers foil, Dr. Bernard Rieux, has a completely different perspective, a more logical, scientific kind. He fights the plague constantly. His certitude that a fight must be put upwas nothing admirablemerely logical (Camus, The Plague 133). He abstains from emotions and adheres to the science and practice of a physician, his profession. The doctor constantly battles against not only the epidemic but also the state representative, who drags his feet in acquiring serum and enacting sanitation measures in an attempt to maintain the status quo

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(Ward) with the civilians. The Prefect refuses to acknowledge the massive amounts of dead rats and the cause for such a substantial death toll. These instances of stubbornness and resistance to change are certainly established within the literary devices of the two works. In The Renegade, the young priest is superbly characterized as stubborn, hardheaded, and impulsivehe longed for nothing more than the power his religion gave him (Rhein 121). The other priests used to say, [his] head was so hard that despite all [his] falls, it ha[d] never once bled in [his] life (Camus, Exile and the Kingdom 35). This brilliant binary thought lends the reader to better understand the exaggerated enthusiasm the young priest has for his beliefs. At one point, he declares, I believed in [The Fetish] and denied all I had believed up to then. Hail! he was strength and powerI refuse to believe it, there are no righteous men but onlyThe Fetish (Camus, Exile and the Kingdom 53-5). This excellent exaggeration of a stubborn character certainly aids the reader into understanding the power and possible malice of tenacity. Characterization also assists in Camus theme of obstinacy in his novel, The Plague. The hero, Dr. Bernard Rieux, is described as being square-jawed, aged 35, and stocky. It would be hard to be more foursquare balanced than that says Robert G. Cohn, author of The True Camus (Hunter 13). This character absorbs and epitomizes his beliefs. Dr. Rieux is logic and science. In her essay, Supplementary in Camus, Hanna Charney comments, Rieux is a son of the working classes and easily distinguishes what is essential from what is not (Knapp 101). It is also Rieux who narrates the novel; therefore, as Cohn states, the very tone of the novel is moderate, cool, a chronicle (Hunter 13). Thomas Merton, author of Camus: The Journals of the Plague Years, agrees, the style of the volume is deliberate and restrained, almost dryThe texture of the novel strives after monotony (Riley 53). Since the novel is his diary, it embodies his stubbornness and adherence to reason and structure, as

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Cohn describes (Hunter 36). This is important for the reader to submerge oneself into and recognize Dr. Rieuxs total obduracy. After fully recognizing mans inflexible nature, readers and experts can agree that stubbornness stems from unrealistic beliefs in perfection. John Erickson mentions in Albert Camus and North Africa: A Discourse of Exteriority that Daru, from The Guest, was put off by the Arabs crime, [but] refuses to dishonor himself by delivering him over to the authorities. Daru has a idealistic belief in honor, which prohibits him from depriving the prisoner of his liberty by collaborating with the authorities(Knapp 84). Camus states, That mans stupid crime revolted him, but to hand him over was contrary to honor. Merely thinking of it made him smart with humiliation (Exile and the Kingdom 105). Obviously, Daru has an unhealthy attachment to honor. Regardless of the necessary Armistead 5 and right, Daru maintains his honor and lets the prisoner go. Akin to The Guest, Yvars and the coopers from The Silent Men have too passionate a connection with honor. They refuse to show emotion toward their grieving boss for he is the enemy and They were men, after all, and they werent going to beginsimpering (Camus, Exile and the Kingdom 78). Rhein comments, The men were forced to return to work [and] resented the fact that their mouths had been closed; and the anger and the helplessness hurt so much [of their honor] (123). This idealistic honor is responsible for the boring lives and discomfort and difficulty of man. In The Plague, honor is also mans unrealistic vision. Grand has his undying wish to find the perfect words. He feels any other expression is drivel. If he cannot express himself correctly, he will not communicate at all. Camus writes, its not easyI should have found the words to keep [my wife] with me - only I couldnt (The Plague 75-6). Grand has some underlying belief that it is not honorable or right to use flawed words. Of course, this is, as Rhein calls it, [an] illusion[for] the very first words it

[to] be possible to say, Hats off! (56). Grand puts too much of his pride forward. Similar to Shakespeares Hamlet, he refuses to act but, instead, wishes to act. Much like Grands pride, Paneloux maintains his firm faith in God. Charney believes Paneloux to be more wrong than Grand can ever bein his sermon, Paneloux reverts to the old theological reasoning: the plague is the result of the peoples sin. (Knapp 103). He has the false ideal that God controls all and that resisting death is futile. Merton condemns Panelouxs desire for vertical salvation as an avoidance from realitys horizontal progression (Riley 53). The Father adheres strictly to his faith to a point far beyond admiralty, where free will perishes. These idealistic thoughts cause mans stubbornness to impede decision-making. Yvars and the coopers refuse to associate with their boss or find new, better work. They are forever trapped in a monotonous, unfulfilling cycle, as long as they worship their ideals. The Renegades pigheadedness and inability to listen to his elders ultimately drives him to devote himself to a pagan figure and assassinate an innocent priest. Being born brightbut pigheaded, one can be totally misguided. (Rhein 122). The Guest ends up allowing a murder to escape simply to maintain his honor. Dr. Rieux fights the plague without passion or care but Armistead 6 for the logic that ultimately runs his life, thereby limiting his desire to end the epidemic. Grands inability to express himself has cost him his marriage, the appointment he was promised twenty years ago at work, and the completion of even a paragraph of his manuscript. Even worse, Father Panelouxs adherence to his faith causes him to wait for the plague to eventually take his life. These affects on decision-making, Albert Camus effectively demonstrates, are caused by ones stubbornness. Staunch idealists create visions of a perfect society that cannot exist. These optimists hold to their values regardless of those around them asking for a change. Ward proclaims, Optimism in times of hopelessnessbetween death and death,

the fact that they make the choice to act and maintain their beliefs is the only thing which someone can be defined. Camus said it best himself as he persists that what we learn in times of pestilence: that there are more things to admire in men than to despise (The Plague 308). While the umpire and coach might argue incessantly, nevertheless the two have an opinion; they have made a choice. Man may myopically hold fast to one concept, but at least he holds on to something.