Albert Camus' The Plague

Albert Camus

Albert Camus’ The Plague (Modern Library College Editions, 1947) is much different in tone from The Stranger (Vintage, 1989).  Where that book was tightly constructed in monochromatic set pieces and spare language like the opening when Meursault keeps vigil with his mother’s body, and integrates color only after Meursault murders the Arab, The Plague is a more traditional novel in scope and sequence.

The story is set in Oran, a French port on the Algerian coast.  Quite suddenly, the town begins to take notice of a large number of rats dying in the streets and alleys and homes of the citizens.  Before people can delve too deeply into the rat problem, human beings become victims of what appears to be an outbreak of Bubonic plague.  The tell-tale signs include the chicken egg sized swelling of lymph nodes, a high fever, and almost certain death.  We know from the history of the bacterial infection that its propensity to wipe out whole towns and populations makes it a frightening adversary in its relentless march to claim its victims.

Dr. Bernard Rieux is the central character and a doctor charged with treating the plague patients.  The outbreak seems to start with his own concierge at his apartment.  The death toll quickly mounts and Rieux finds himself working nearly 24 hour shifts at the hospital and making house calls to try to save the sick and dying.  With Rieux is an ensemble of characters who are caught up, one way or another, in the rapidly spreading pestilence.  There’s Cottard, first introduced when Rieux saves him from committing suicide; the moralistic Tarrou who organizes volunteers to assist with the sick; city politician Grand, one of the few people who recovers from the sickness; Rambert, a journalist trapped in the city away from the woman he loves; and Father Paneloux, a priest who comes to comfort victims even while questioning his own faith and a God who is willing to let even small children suffer a horrendous death.

The strength of this novel is in the way Camus writes so prophetically about a pandemic.  In the age of Covid-19, his writing is almost too spot on.  In a discussion of the bacteria’s origin, Rieux wants to wait for the laboratory analysis while his colleague, Castel, has already guessed where the pestilence came from:  China.  Castel also says the disease may never be named because of “The usual taboo, of course; the public mustn’t be alarmed, that wouldn’t do at all.”

Camus comments on the way pandemics bring out the worst in the population.  “Everybody knows that pestilences have a way of recurring in the world; yet somehow we find it hard to believe in ones that crash down on our heads from a blue sky.  There have been as many plagues as wars in history; yet always plagues and wars take people equally by surprise.”  On the lasting power of a plague and the shortsightedness of the populace, he writes, “Stupidity has a knack of getting its way; as we should see if we were not always so much wrapped up in ourselves…we tell ourselves that pestilence is a mere bogy of the mind, a bad dream that will pass away.  But it doesn’t always pass away and, from one bad dream to another, it is men who pass away…”

We recognize ourselves in “exile in one’s own home,” and we go along as Camus describes the beauty of the blue sky, the freshness of the breeze, the clean, clear air.  Nature seems to thrive while humans remain in hiding from the unseen bacterium and the death it brings.  There are food shortages and panic.  Rieux describes how he must build an anteroom to his main office so he can triage patients.  Many hospitals had to convert waiting rooms into triage areas in this pandemic.  School houses are also requisitioned in Camus’ novel, much the same way we are taking over sports stadiums, public parks for tent hospitals, and abandoned buildings for homeless shelters.  The families of the sick cannot gain admission to hospitals so they worry they may never see loved ones again once they go in for treatment.

Rieux makes mention of the crazy behavior he sees.  He describes widespread panic with dangerous consequences.  “If things go on as they are going,” he says, “the whole town will be a madhouse.”  Once Oran’s gates are closed to those on the outside and to those on the inside who wish to escape, people resort to violence to get past the sentries.  Restaurants post signs promising their silverware is sterilized.  People latch on to supposed cures, like peppermint lozenges.

Tarrou keeps notebooks that “comprise a sort of chronicle of those strange early days we all lived through.”  But Tarrou often downplays the deadly reach of the plague, almost as if he is “observing events and people through the wrong end of a telescope.”  There is a struggle, evident in the novel and in today’s world, to gain perspective, to discover a way of understanding a silent killer.

Albert Camus’s novel needs to be read in this time of Covid-19.  Camus’ characters are touched by the disease and come to an understanding of the fragility of life.  As evidenced by the ridiculous behavior of many Americans these days, we have yet to gain such wisdom from this pestilence.  There is hope, however, that enlightenment will come, and we will move forward with caution and empathy for each other as we are reminded nearly every day, that we are in this together.