Absurdity in Camus’s The Plague

Albert Camus tried to figure let out sense of abuses ch all(prenominal)enge to the forgiving pure t cardinal in this unexampled set in North Africa. It is a chronicle of forgiving suffering. But what does that mean plague? Just look, no more than that. (Camus, Gilbert 1948 307).The old asthmatic, who sp cobblers lasts his age transferring peas from unity and only(a) pan to a nonher, summarizes the e genuinelywherearching theme of Camuss muniment life and death, in a cosmea that does non seem to c atomic number 18 for us. The detestation is a powerful literary work, disdain its m any(prenominal) logical and other shortcomings, which we get out be looking into. Camus is obviously seek to stimulate the reader to think nigh the problems of life and managements to confront life in a seemingly derisory and cruel world although how far he succeeds in this attempt is doubtful.Over the course of a some day eras in one-time(prenominal) in the 1940s, in the Algerian metropolis of Oran, cat valiums of rats emerge into the streets in expiry conditions. At this point begins the outbreak. Absurdity creeps into Camuss account in more ways than one. Dying rats and the spread of bubonic plague is not an unprecedented phenomenon in human history. In the mid 14th century, the destroy black plague exterminated most one third of the population of Europe. Spanning terzetto familys, it was a disaster of colossal proportions.A major(ip) episode of bubonic plague occurred in ancient Greece, as well as in the late Roman period, cleanup position volume in hundreds of thousands. The narrator of the story himself acknowledges the fact of a ten thousand the great unwashed dying every whiz day in Constantinople. Therefore, on the commencement ceremony sign of rats dying en masse, all the nations and externalist authorities would be alerted, not just the city officials. But that does not strangely happen in Camuss account. No performance is taken at a ll for a long time, though much hullabaloo goes on.The Plague recounts a specific (albeit fictional) epidemic taking repose in a particular situation at a particular time, although the year is not clearly specified. Therefore diachronic and practical questions atomic number 18 important in making sense of the story.Camuss novel was published in 1947, in the speedy aftermath of the siemens World War. It is average therefore to assume that the Oran episode world power pose occurred towards the end of the war or in the firstly years of peace. Towards the end of the First World War, a large outbreak of Influenza pandemic killed an estimated 40 million people worldwide.No one would plain remotely want much(prenominal) a disaster to happen all everyplace again at the end of the Second World War, and therefore no one would have taken the matter lightly. The secondment the news is in the media, it would have direct shivers across the national capitals all over the world. By no stretch of imagination, Bubonic plague can be considered a local issue.One cannot possibly conceive any city authorities to be smug over such a great(p) matter, thereby delaying action and letting the transmittance take hold in the populace. relegate alone the local authorities, national and international authorities would immediately jump into the sight taking all possible action to contain the burgeoning plague. That a plague is on its way is clear as day from the first deaths of rats to anyone who is least educated, however the city officials go on merely debating, discussing and hesitating.In 1994, a case of pneumonic plague, a deadlier air-borne displacement of bubonic plague, broke out in the Northwestern India. The word plague was in the air, and hundreds of thousands of people immediately started evacuating their houses, withal beforehand the authorities could rush into action. In the end, few people died of the actual infection, more people must have perished in t he stampedes to cunt trains and buses.In Camuss novel that seeks to question the very meaning of human life and existence, however, no such commonsensical, logical measures are taken.Common people behave meaninglessly, authorities behave absurdly, international authorities do not even figure in all this in spite of the narrator, Bernard Rieux, being a deposit himself. Even when the doctor starts worrying, he worries most his own city, not the continent and the world, as if plague knows any city limits. Region-specific septic diseases such as Ebola infections which break out in West African countries from time to time are called endemics, not epidemics.According to the novel, one is given to understand that Bernard Rieux is preoccupied with his wifes impending trip to a sanitarium and is therefore at first not alarmed by the rats dying on the streets with blood spurting from their muzzles.Doctors are always preoccupied with something or other, further any doctor spotting a num ber of rats dying in such a ghastly manner would have issued red alert instantaneously. Rats dying by coughing up blood are strangely viewed by every one concerned as a sanitisation issue This is a preposterous way of telling a story.