“The Plague” was written by Albert Camus during the 1940s which was focused on shedding light about the impact of a devastating plague and how it physically, mentally, and emotionally affected the people living in Oran, a city of Algeria. It even went down trying to explicate the abstraction of those people’s lives and how it affected their conception of reality and vice versa. This literary piece overall portrayed the limits of human nature and understanding as well as the possible consequences anyone could face once one crosses its exceeding bounds.
According to few scholars, the novel was meant to depict the illnesses caused by the binding capitalist socio-political and economic system in Algeria. For others, it was a manifestation of revealing the cruel situation brought by fascism during the Nazi domination that killed countless of lives, similar to what a plague does. While for some, the book was merely a book about a plague itself, nothing more. However, whatever speculation may come up, one thing is clear: This classical piece of literature revealed so much of how humanity thinks and acts in times of crisis, and how internal conflict to oneself could be what can destroy humanity instead of the plague itself. In other words, our existence is our plague, and that we are in constant war against ourselves.
Camus’ The Plague was grounded on the philosophy of Absurdism which had been prevalent in the entirety of the story. In the book, various characters portrayed the various approaches of embracing the absurd. Cottard, who once in the past was a suspect of a crime, felt great fear of arrest and punishment more than that of the plague and so, when it started to devastate the city, he felt a sense of comfort knowing that he’s not the only one who’s suffering in loneliness and despair. Father Paneloux on the other hand was embracing the absurd his whole life by surrendering to the Almighty One and doing everything through leaps of faith. Paneloux was portrayed to be constantly looking for something in life’s absurdity without totally experiencing life itself - showcasing his false hope in seeking the meaning of life through faith. On the other hand, Dr. Rieux, Rambert, and Tarrou were the ones who struggled to accept the absurdity of life in a manner that they stand face to face with the irrational. For Camus, this approach of embracing the absurd does not necessitate conceding; rather, he said that the moment we acknowledge how meaningless life is also signals the commitment of waging revolution against the absence of meaning of life.
The COVID 19 pandemic situation that we face right now is very much similar to what happened in the city of Oran where everyone was put in isolation. Undeniably, this kind of isolation within the novel brought amalgamated emotions that eventually led to people’s emotional havoc. This situation is very much reflected in the book where authorities placed the whole city in Oran in quarantine the moment the plague started razing. Just like in “The Plague'', the sudden deprivation of people afflicted both a sense of yearning and doubt to everyone even in the pandemic. Yearning, as everyone wished that they were with their loved ones and doubt, as everyone was torn between hoping that the plague will eventually end, and surrendering to what it is. This intersection and point of similarity between fiction and reality serves as a strong portrayal that sometimes - or most of the time - what really makes things much more difficult to grasp is not the situation itself but on how we perceive it and how it strikes our emotional aspects. Realistically, the pandemic already reveals itself the way it is. However, we are not shall never be prepared at all on its impact therefore, we resort in a frame of mind that caters to our desires regardless of how detached it seems to the truth. As Dr. Rieux from the book once said, “Abstraction sometimes proves itself stronger than happiness, But where some saw abstraction others saw the truth.”
Conclusively, this manifests that people are the plague itself - that our thoughts, expectations, and perceptions are the ones that contaminate our lives. To begin with, life is already absurd as it is. There’s no specific and absolute purpose of human lives and even if we try to make sense of it, it will still be invalidated by absurdism. Thus, the only way to confront such absurdity is to embrace it in a manner that life and death shall quiver on how we deal with it as if we are not afraid of what they have to offer.
Sources:
The Plague. (n.d.). SparkNotes. Retrieved November 17, 2021, from https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/plague/summary/
Absurdism. (n.d.). Litcharts. Retrieved November 17, 2021, from https://www.litcharts.com/lit/the-plague/themes/absurdism
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