The Black Death Plague Analysis

The world has known plagues throughout history. It comes, stays, wipes out most of the population in an area, then leaves and stays dormant until it is able to replicate itself. The Black Death is known as one of the worst plagues in the history of the world. Alas, Albert Camus is not writing about a real plague nor does he care about explaining the Black Death or any of its predecessors. Malcolm Jones describes Camus’ purpose, “Camus is not interested in explaining bubonic plague. He only cares about exploring its effect on a population and most particularly on their responses” (2). Camus is only concerned with how the plague changes the people of Oran. Oran is the perfect city for a plague because of not only its location, but the type of

people who live there. The townsfolk can only be described through their sense of normality and habits. Albert Camus’ The Plague depicts the plague as a necessary evil to change the lives of a town that takes life for granted. With the heat of the plague engulfing exiled Oran, the townsfolk are changed through the missing of loved ones left behind, the banding together for the greater good, the worshiping of God and the piling of the ones captured by death.
Dr. Bernard Rieux opens up the story to dead rats. The rats started off in small proportions, then by the thousands, they would die. Dead rats are found anywhere. They are on the streets, in hotels, and in apartments. A cleaning crew comes by with garbage trucks full of them. For most it is not something to be extremely alarmed about. Until it starts to happen on humans. Rieux is called to houses and notices a similarity in symptoms to bubonic plague. The abnormal swelling of the ganglia is the piece of the puzzle that brought Rieux to think about it being plague. At the declaration of the outbreak in Oran as being plague, they shut their borders, segregating Oran from the rest of the world. The town is on a complete lockdown to minimize the spreading of plague. “All these people found themselves, without the least warning, hopelessly cut off” (Plague 68). Everyone is trapped in Oran. Raymond Rampart is a journalist from Paris in Oran researching Arab sanitary conditions who is stuck unable to go home to his wife. Jean Tarrou is also stuck in Oran while on his vacation. Although Rieux is native to Oran, his invalid wife lives in a sanitorium outside of Oran. Many leave behind loved ones, “Mothers and children, lovers, husbands and wives, who had a few days previously taken it for granted that their parting would be a short one” (Plague 67-68). They are now separated and alone. The sick are isolated for the safety of the healthy. Families begin to feel lost and desperate enough to wish to be with ones either sick or outside of the city. The risk of dying is overshadowed by a person’s loneliness in separation. “What everyone misses is love, the commitment to the other that...the narrator records story after story of love interrupted, love lost, love longed for” (LeBlanc 5). This separation and isolation hurts a human’s natural instinct to love and be loved, but this time also brings about a greater appreciation of loved ones and the time spent together.
The quarantine is limiting on the townsfolk and their habits that they became so accustomed to. The loneliness and separation gives the townsfolk time and semi-freedom in their lives, meanwhile the plague is creating a mess out of Oran. Town leaders try to organize a group or more of people willing to work together in maintaining their town. Their incentive is ineffective because it was coming from people who think of themselves higher than the common man. Tarrou realizes that the only way to reach the masses is to come from someone who relates to them. He converses with Rieux about the need of assertive leaders, “Basically, each comment by Rieux or his coworker Tarrou speaks to the need for human leaders to take over the job of betterment in the absence of God” (Great 22). The next day Tarrou puts forth his incentive with an overwhelming response and willingness from the townsfolk. Rieux describes it as when there is evil and no one is at least trying to defy it, then men must be able to rise up and fight it, putting themselves aside (Plague 125). The sanitary groups allows for not only the town to accept their new reality, but stand up and fight against it day by day. “These groups enabled our townsfolk to come to grips with the disease and convinced them that, now that plague was among us, it was up to them to do whatever could be done to fight it” (Plague 132). Tarrou allows people to work together and maintain normalcy. His incentive is a chance for people to help their city while strengthening and growing the sense of community. Novels for Students illustrates the importance of community by saying, “His personal happiness becomes less important than his commitment to helping the community” (210). It gives purpose to a person while awaiting release from quarantine or life. The banding together also allows the townsfolk to see that there is more to life than routine and that the smallest help can make a difference in someone’s life.
Though there are some atheists, there are still just enough believers in God for Father Paneloux to amuse them with his divine sermons. His first sermon as written is about how God is just and that the plague is a necessary evil. “A brute denial of Paneloux’s theology, which is founded on belief in a just God whose providential intervention in the world transforms evil into good” (Brosman 94). Father Paneloux is a firm believer that the plague is only temporary and that good will come out of it. The Week of Prayer is the town leaders’ attempt at bringing together the town. It is meant to make living in quarantine easier for all. At the services Father Paneloux is giving a sermon to gracious, full audiences. “There were large attendances at the services of the Week of Prayer. It must not, however, be assumed that in normal times the townsfolk of Oran are particularly devout” (Plague 93). At this point the plague is at an early stage. The townsfolk are grasping on the hope that Father Paneloux’s words about good coming from evil are true. Now the death toll is out of control and hope is almost diminished. Belief in God holds true to very little of Oran. The audiences at church are dwindling. “But there was darkness also in men’s hearts, and the facts were as little calculated to reassure our townsfolk as the wild stories going round about the burials” (Plague 172). Almost all hope in God and good is gone. They changed from being believers in God to not believing in Him or hope. They feel as there is no being looking out for them.
As the plague captures more victims the inhabitants are altered on their outlooks on life.

“The plague is lethal but it has no rationale. It is a force as opaque as it is deadly” (Jones 1). The plague has no reason for who it kills and who it affects, it cares to survive. Death knows no boundaries as long as the body alive, the plague will eat away at it until death comes and takes its place. “It seemed that, for obvious reasons, the plague launched its most virulent attacks on those who lived, by choice or by necessity, in groups: soldiers, prisoners, monks, and nuns” (Plague 169). Camus is describing that no matter who they are or what rank in society they are, the plague does not care, neither does death. Their wealth or good deeds cannot be avoided. Father Paneloux, Tarrou and Rieux pay witness to the grip of the plague on a little boy. Step by step they watch as he convulses and writhes in pain. The serum is no help to the boy. Soon the life is sucked from him and he goes limp, finally in peace. The men had seen death in plague patients before, but not like this. Never had they seen it from infantry. The boy’s death forever alters them, knowing that he was innocent and did not deserve the cruel ending he was given. The plague’s death count rapidly rises each day. The amount of dead bodies per day becomes a game of Tetris to find a spot to put them. The cemeteries are full and overflowing. They are taking up bodies from old graves and cremating them to make room for plague victims. Past curfew is the time to bury the bodies because doing it during the daytime would create a public spectacle, although, “The few belated wayfarers...often saw the long white ambulances hurtling past, making the nightbound streets reverberate with the dull clanger of their bells” (Plague 177). Ambulances are limitless hearses to the countless dead bodies. The townsfolk are used to this new routine the plague brought to them: death and more death. For them the ending is so far away

it is nearly nonexistent. Which is why the decreasing death rate brings them little to no optimism. Their state of mind only allowed them to think that worse will be coming. “Though this sudden setback of the plague was as welcome as it was unlooked-for, our townsfolk were in no hurry to jubilate” (Plague 269). After being witness to so much death, pessimism for Rieux is not unheard of. He lost his wife and Tarrou at the hand of the plague (Plague 269). Death is the most change that the townsfolk encountered. Death allows them to lose hope in escaping it and gives them a pessimistic outlook for what is to come.
Camus’ intentions are clear that he is focused on how Oran is able to respond to the plague. The plague may be fictitious, but the way people respond to it is real and based off of previous plagues. The only change is in the immediate technology at the time. Before the plague Oran was a healthy, hopeful city full of straight-minded townsfolk who were comfortable in their habits. The townsfolk were stuck in a constant circle of their lives where not much differed as days go on. After the plague, everything has changed. The city is now one big burial ground for victims of the plague. They are in a different circle in which they cannot control. The townsfolk are scarred by the amount of sadness and death brought on by the plague. Hope is diminished by the plague. Brosman simply puts it, “Lives are changed; lives are ended” (93). They are forever changed by missing loved ones, banding together, believing in God, and witnessing too much death.