Summary of The Plague by Albert Camus

Description

What does it feel like to be suddenly cut off from nature and the world, beleaguered by an invisible bacillus and condemned to endless apathy? And, more importantly, what to do in such a nightmarish situation? Albert Camus, inspired by historical accounts of plague outbreaks and his experience during the Resistance in Nazi-occupied France, answered that timeless question in The Plague: Get up and do something useful together! The novel tells of a group of men who don’t even try to make sense of a meaningless disease, but instead establish hygiene standards, isolate and care for the sick, develop a cure and hope for the best. Like all pestilences, the plague eventually runs its course. But Camus warned his readers of complacency: Pathogens like totalitarianism, racism or mindless opportunism won’t disappear for good. We must rise up in collective action and resist each recurring wave, over and over and over again.

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Sujets

• Classics
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: GetAbstract AG
• Date de parution: 04 août 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9798887270920
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Plague
Albert Camus•First edition: Paris 1947

Novel
Modern literature

Take-Aways The Plague, published in 1947, was Albert Camus’ international breakthrough. First the rats are dying in the streets of the Algerian coastal city Oran, then the plague breaks out. At first, everyone is in denial. But after a complete lockdown is imposed and case numbers rise sharply, a medical doctor and his outsider friend decide to fight the disease by organizing volunteers in sanitary squads. After much death and despair, the plague is defeated, families and lovers are reunited and life begins anew. The novel can be read on several levels: As a realistic tale of an epidemic outbreak, an allegory of active resistance to totalitarianism, or a comment on the Absurd. Camus believed that the only way to confront the absurdity and pointlessness of life was to rebel against it and create meaning through action. He wrote large parts of the novel while working for the French Resistance paper Combat during World War II. The Plague was inspired by the belief that men are inherently decent. Camus’ message of responsibility and solidarity struck a chord with readers and made it his first commercial success. In 1957, at almost 44, the Algerian-born Camus became the second youngest Nobel Prize winner ever. At the start of the COVID-19 crisis in 2020, demand was so high that The Plague even went out of stock at Amazon. “On the whole, men are more good than bad; that, however, isn’t the real point. But they are more or less ignorant, and it is this that we call vice or virtue.”

What It’s About
A Tale of Human Decency
What does it feel like to be suddenly cut off from nature and the world, beleaguered by an invisible bacillus and condemned to endless apathy? And, more importantly, what to do in such a nightmarish situation? Albert Camus, inspired by historical accounts of plague outbreaks and his experience during the Resistance in Nazi-occupied France, answered that timeless question in The Plague : Get up and do something useful together! The novel tells of a group of men who don’t even try to make sense of a meaningless disease, but instead establish hygiene standards, isolate and care for the sick, develop a cure and hope for the best. Like all pestilences, the plague eventually runs its course. But Camus warned his readers of complacency: Pathogens like totalitarianism, racism or mindless opportunism won’t disappear for good. We must rise up in collective action and resist each recurring wave, over and over and over again.

Summary
The Rats Arrive
Oran is a bustling yet dull port town on the Algerian coast, populated by hardworking, business-minded people who seldom look beyond their mundane habits – a place to live peacefully and unperturbed by the world at large. So when Dr. Bernard Rieux finds a dead rat lying in the middle of his building’s landing, he doesn’t give it another thought. The concierge M. Michel flat out denies that there could be rats in the building. Yet soon enough, the town is invaded by a repulsive mass of dying rats, often spurting blood and giving off agonizing death-cries in their last moments. The doctor sees off his ailing wife on the night train, assuring her that everything will be all right. She will spend some time in a mountain sanatorium to get better. To keep house during her absence, his mother will join him soon.
When Raymond Rambert, a journalist working for a Paris daily, asks Rieux about the living conditions among the Arab population of the city, the doctor declines to comment, knowing full well that Rambert couldn’t publish the unqualified truth about it anyway. But the doctor suggests he look into this curious rat invasion. On the fourth day, the beasts come out in packs and city officials give orders to collect and burn them in the incinerator.
“ It was as if the earth on which our houses stood were being purged of its secreted humors; thrusting up to the surface the abscesses and pus-clots that had been forming in its entrails.