Summary

One April morning in the 1940's in Oran, Algeria, Dr. Rieux, preoccupied with his ill wife's imminent
departure to a sanatorium, discovers a dead rat. This unusual event marks the beginning of an epidemic
of bubonic plague that will besiege the city until the following February. Over the long ten months Rieux,
his acquaintances, friends, colleagues and fellow citizens labor, each in his own way, with the individual
and social transformations caused by the all-consuming illness. Separation, isolation, and penury
become the common lot of distinct characters whose actions, thoughts and feelings constitute a
dynamic tableau of man imprisoned.

Commentary

As the epigraph makes clear, imprisonment by the plague is a metaphor for other forms of occupation.
Nonetheless, the impact of the epidemic is fully rendered, including in comparison to other historic
plagues. Together, the epigraph and the body of the novel invite a discussion of literary theories of
representation, and particularly, because of the subject matter and its treatment, of the representation
of illness and related topics.

Moreover, through the reactions of individual characters and collective elements of society, this great
novel explores broader themes of freedom, responsibility, love and death, time and exile, while
examining more specifically the duty of the physician, the interactions of the biological, psychological
and social aspects of life, the challenge to religious faith by the suffering of innocents, and the
importance and limitations of romance, family, and friends.

The strong presence of a narrator who promises to reveal himself only at the end of the "chronicle," and
the emphasis on the credentials and sources that enable him to construct an "objective" account of the
plague, raise questions about narrative method, voice and perspective. In the end, the reader regrets
leaving the newly discovered Rieux in the now free city of Oran. For a very different treatment of similar
medical subject matter see Jean Giono's The Horseman on the Roof (see this database).

Miscellaneous

First published: 1947 (La Peste, Gallimard, Paris). Translated by Stuart Gilbert.

Publisher

Penguin

Place Published

Harmondsworth, Middlesex
Edition

1970

The novel takes place in the Algerian city of Oran. The narrator, Dr. Rie, notes the event of the plague
year, a terrible epidemic that put all the inhabitants in the face of death.

The plague begins suddenly – its first sign is rats, which are massively dying in the city, but no one
attaches importance to it, only Dr. Rie immediately realizes the scale of this disaster. He gathers like-
minded people – the thinker Tarru, the official Gran, the journalist Rambert and others, and organizes
squads to counter the plague to the best of his ability. “The main thing is to do your job well,” he says.

The city is quarantined, but among the citizens there are those who believe that the plague is God’s
punishment sent for sins and there is no other way out than humility. The priest Panlu calls for this. But
after the death of the sinless boy, he understands that it is necessary to act. Finally, all the inhabitants of
Oran join forces and confront the plague.

A year of intense struggle passes and suddenly the plague recedes. Dr. Rie walks the streets of the
restored city, but he does not leave the thought that the plague bacillus never disappears and can return
at any time if there are favorable conditions for this.

The novel reveals the problems of mobilizing people in critical situations, the will to live and fight against
common evil, the problem of an eternal, absurd and invincible enemy. The image of the plague here is a
generalized image of all those terrible things that humanity has been struggling with for hundreds of
years. This is the unjustified cruelty of the war, which destroys a lot of lives not involved in its beginning
and main goal. And merciless diseases to people who are indifferent to age and morality. The author
focuses on the fact that they are always waiting for us, you just have to relax.

The main pathos and absurdity is that after defeating evil, at least temporarily, people rejoice and
rejoice, but over time, when the most terrible pictures disappear in memory, everything starts again.
This cyclical nature is characteristic of human society, and it is very important to break this vicious circle.

The Plague, is a novel by Albert Camus, published in 1947, that tells the story of a plague sweeping the
French Algerian city of Oran. It asks a number of questions relating to the nature of destiny, and the
human condition. The characters in the book, ranging from doctors to vacationers to fugitives, all help to
show the effects the plague has on a populace.
The novel is believed to be based on the cholera epidemic that killed a large percentage of Oran's
population in 1849, following French colonization, but the novel is placed in the 1940s. Oran and its
environs were struck by disease multiple times before Camus published this novel. According to a
research report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Oran was decimated by the plague in
1556 and 1678, but all later outbreaks, in 1921 (185 cases), 1931 (76 cases), and 1944 (95 cases), were
very far from the scale of the epidemic described in the novel.

The Plague is considered an existentialist classic, despite Camus' objection to the label. The narrative
tone is similar to Kafka's, especially in The Trial, whose individual sentences potentially have multiple
meanings, the material often pointedly resonating as stark allegory of phenomenal consciousness, and
the human condition.

Camus included a dim-witted character misreading The Trial as a mystery novel, as an oblique homage.
The novel has been read as a metaphorical treatment of the French resistance to Nazi occupation during
World War II. Additionally, he further illustrates the human reaction towards the absurd. The Plague
represents how the world deals with the philosophical notion of the absurd, a theory that Camus himself
helped to define.

The Plague, is a novel by Albert Camus, published in 1947, that tells the story of a plague sweeping the
French Algerian city of Oran. It asks a number of questions relating to the nature of destiny, and the
human condition. The characters in the book, ranging from doctors to vacationers to fugitives, all help to
show the effects the plague has on a populace.

The novel is believed to be based on the cholera epidemic that killed a large percentage of Oran's
population in 1849, following French colonization, but the novel is placed in the 1940s. Oran and its
environs were struck by disease multiple times before Camus published this novel. According to a
research report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Oran was decimated by the plague in
1556 and 1678, but all later outbreaks, in 1921 (185 cases), 1931 (76 cases), and 1944 (95 cases), were
very far from the scale of the epidemic described in the novel.

The Plague is considered an existentialist classic, despite Camus' objection to the label. The narrative
tone is similar to Kafka's, especially in The Trial, whose individual sentences potentially have multiple
meanings, the material often pointedly resonating as stark allegory of phenomenal consciousness, and
the human condition.
Camus included a dim-witted character misreading The Trial as a mystery novel, as an oblique homage.
The novel has been read as a metaphorical treatment of the French resistance to Nazi occupation during
World War II. Additionally, he further illustrates the human reaction towards the absurd. The Plague
represents how the world deals with the philosophical notion of the absurd, a theory that Camus himself
helped to define.