ipl-logo

Literary Analysis: The Plague By Albert Camus

1559 Words7 Pages

In my essay I will be discussing the link between the different ways of reading “The Plague” (by Albert Camus, published in 1947) (Google Books, 2014). There is of course the literal story of a plague, then there is the metaphorical meaning of the Nazi Occupation, and when you look deeper into the book, you find that all of this is based around not just the Nazi occupation but a “darkness” - which symbolises pure evil. This evil is not literally the devil, but a more complicated way of referring to Existentialism (Miclaus, 2014). There is an order of reading this book and by analysing it, we come to an understanding with how the three themes come together into a bigger picture. When you start reading the novel you are aware of reading about …show more content…

When we look at the people in the small town of Oran and how they differ before the outbreak of the plague and after the quarantine, we get a sense of what Camus is trying to get at. Father Paneloux’s mind-set, for example, is one of many that changes about the plague and resisting it. In Claudia Miclaus’s analysis of “The Plague” she states that people realised the importance of resisting the plague. After having suffered through it, witnessing the extensive amount of deaths, it was crucial that the remaining living souls would have to work together to overcome the plague (Miclaus, 2014). When we look at the language that is used in Father Paneloux’s sermon, we bear witness to another theme that comes into play: the theme of The Plague being a metaphysical idea of Evil: “we walk in the darkness… in the thick darkness of this plague.” (Father Paneloux’s first …show more content…

These movements were a response to war and the unbelievable number of dead that were recorded in the time period between World War I and II. Existentialism was all about the absurdity of life and that life was a queue for death. Existentialists believed in the reality of the present and that anyone could die in the most inhumane manner, with or without hope of god awaiting them in afterlife. It was mostly just about the hope that people had of living another day. There was just death and destruction and the philosophy that became a mind-set that was based around nothingness (Aronson,

Show More
Related

Summary Of Charles Chesnutt's Marrow Of Tradition

634 Words | 3 Pages

Within the first few chapters, it becomes clear that

Read More

Analysis Of A Most Terrible Plague By Giovanni Boccaccio

524 Words | 3 Pages

The primary source I chose for my analysis is “A Most Terrible Plague: Giovanni Boccaccio”. This document focuses on the account of how individuals acted when a plague broke out and hundreds of people were dying every day. This source is written by Giovanni Boccaccio as it is a story told by him and friends as they passed the time. Boccaccio discusses how “the plague had broken out some years before in the Levant, and after passing from place to place, and making incredible havoc along the way, had now reached the west.” Readers of this source can assume there wasn’t much cures and medicinal technology weren’t used much during this time as even their physicians stayed away from the sick because once they got close they would also get sick.

Read More

Summary Of After The Plague By Thomas Coraghessan Boyle

625 Words | 3 Pages

If you ask any person to list the top things they would want in a dream life they would most likely account money and luxurious things, but are they necessary to achieve happiness? In Thomas Coraghessan Boyle’s short story, “After the Plague”, although the main character Francis Xavier Halloran (aka Jed) felt that he needed wealth and fame to be happy due to a broken childhood, after analyzing the literary element characterization reveals that Jed would rather live a simple life with someone he can connect with after he opens up to Felicia. Jed is quickly thrust into an apocalyptic situation while he is off on a sabbatical leave in a cabin in the middle of the woods. Boyle introduces some of Jed’s core struggles when he begins to talk about how he wants to make money writing a novel about “my deprived and miserable Irish-Catholic upbringing” where it is portrayed as if he only wanted to write about it to make money off it.

Read More

Pneumonic Plague Dbq Essay

1303 Words | 6 Pages

During the thirteenth century, a disease known as the Black Death spread from Asia to Europe at an alarming speed. It travelled through the trade routes, in the form of infected fleas carried from town to town on rats causing catastrophic loses of population . The Black Death consisted of two forms of the disease; the pneumonic plague, and the bubonic plague . Since it was unknown as to what caused the disease at the time, their responses to the plague’s outbreak were almost entirely futile. Since religion was a big factor in nearly everybody’s lives, the records of the Black Death that we do have are heavily influenced by religion, and as such, their views strongly swayed things like treatments and medicine that were used against the plague.

Read More

Short Summary Of Plague By David Sedaris

1400 Words | 6 Pages

Generally, his first approach to readers is “A Plague of Tics” which makes us really curious about it because we know that it is a disease as mentioned as “Plague” and also it is repetitively as “Tics”. It is surprising that his story does not

Read More

The Doctors Plague Chapter Summary

1104 Words | 5 Pages

Judeah Auguste University of Alaska Anchorage The Doctors Plague, Sherwin B. Nuland Kraft The Doctors Plague depicts the story of the lifeline of Ignac Semmelweis, a physician in the First Division at the Allgemeine Krankenhaus hospital in Vienna and his discovery of childbed fever. Nuland opens the medical-scientific novel with a fictional story of a young nameless girl who is inching closer to her birth date. From her friend, she learns there are two obstetric divisions, one run by doctors and the other by midwives, advising the soon to be mom to stay clear of medical students. Already foreshadowing being attended by the medical students results in an uncomfortable situation, Nuland leaves the readers with curiosity and the answer to

Read More

The Great Plague: The Black Death

731 Words | 3 Pages

The reactions from the Christians and the Muslims to the greatly feared disease, known as the Black Death or the Great Plague were different in several ways. The first Plague was documented from 541 to 544 CE. Known as the Plague of Justinian. The Plague came in three different ways: bubonic, pneumonic, and septicemic. With bubonic being the most common.

Read More

Compassion In Tim O Brien's The Plague

1116 Words | 5 Pages

It is easy, and sometimes simplest, to fall into the everyday rhythms of a society and to forget one’s sense of compassion for others. The general working-class in the town of Oran is prone to such emotional detachment, which leads to many people finding themselves lost in the midst of an organized chaos. In the case of Bernard Rieux, it initially appears that he lacks an emotional compass, however, it becomes evident throughout the novel that the doctor is, in fact, empathetic and utilizes such emotional intelligence to determine his professional ethics in relation to the plague. When the narrator, whose identity is concealed at the beginning of the novel, introduces Dr. Rieux as just another worker businessman from the town of Oran

Read More

The American Plague: The Epidemic The Shaped Our History

1806 Words | 8 Pages

One of the biggest summer nuisance would be the mosquito, but more specifically the Ades aegypti mosquito. The Aedes aegypti is the vector for yellow fever and the cause of the numerous deaths. In her book The American Plague: The Untold Story of Yellow Fever, The Epidemic the Shaped Our History, Molly Caldwell Crosby presents the idea that the mosquito is not just the only reason an epidemic occurred in the 18th century. This story accounts for the disease that broke out across the world and nearly destroyed almost all of North America’s population, which some believe could have been avoided by simple quarantine analysis and sanitary methods.

Read More

Response To The Plague Dbq Essay

1097 Words | 5 Pages

During the mid-fourteenth century, a plague hit Europe. Initially spreading through rats and subsequently fleas, it killed at least one-third of the population of Europe and continued intermittently until the 18th century. There was no known cure at the time, and the bacteria spread very quickly and would kill an infected person within two days, which led to structural public policies, religious, and medical changes in Europe. The plague had an enormous social effect, killing much of the population and encouraging new health reforms, it also had religious effects by attracting the attention of the Catholic Church, and lastly, it affected the trade around Europe, limiting the transportation of goods. As a response to the plague that took place

Read More

Analyzing Albert Camus The Guest

294 Words | 2 Pages

In “The Guest” written by Albert Camus, Balducci a police officer heads toward the school where Daru teaches. He comes with a prisoner, the Arab man, who’s been arrested for killing his cousin over some grain dispute. Daru is now ordered to take the Arab to police headquarters in Tinguit, but Daru gives the prisoner a choice to either turn himself in or flee for safety, but the prisoner chooses prison instead. Daru mentions how he lives in a desert where no one could survive in, “No one in this desert, neither he nor his guest, mattered. And yet, outside this desert neither of them, Daru knew, could have really lived.

Read More

Examples Of Suspense In The Plague

756 Words | 4 Pages

That is the suspense for the book, he do not wants to the reader to know if that is the real plague or not, also that is the suspense for the patients, they do not know what kind of illness yet. And at the second date, he back to the patient. “Old M. Michel’s temperature, and gone down to 99 and, though he still looked very weak, he was smiling. ‘ He’s better, doctor, isn’t he?’ his wife inquired.

Read More

Irvin Yalom Existential Model

809 Words | 4 Pages

The harsh realities of the industrial revolution created a climate of fear and anxiety about the human condition, which made many people more receptive to existential ideas. The birth of the existential movement took place following World Wars I and II and influential philosophers such as Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Sartre, who were in conflict with the predominant ideologies of their time, were committed to exploring and understanding human experience. Existentialism has three main branches; Christian existentialism represented by Kierkegaard, Jaspers, Marcel and May; aethestic existentialism represented by Sartre, Camus and Nietzsche and Jewish existentialism represented by Buber, Yalom and Frankl. (Professor M.L.O Rourke Handout October 2016). The Humanistic version of existential therapy predominantly thrived in America, through the work of Yalom (Van Durzen,

Read More

Joseph Grand: A Hero In Albert Camus's The Plague

1052 Words | 5 Pages

A hero is someone who helps others in a time of need, helps others out of genuineness, and sacrifices their life for others. In Albert Camus’, The Plague, Joseph Grand is identified as a hero because he brings salvation to the society of Oran. Joseph Grand’s authenticity and heroism are manifested through relieving suffering, sacrifice, and devoting his life to work. Joseph Grand is identified as a hero due to relieving suffering out of genuineness. Joseph Grand is a municipal clerk in the town of Oran when the plague hits.

Read More

Symbolism In The Plague

759 Words | 4 Pages

Camus emphasizes that a time of pestilence teaches us to come together and that there is more to admire in humans than despair. Through the use of setting, Camus portrays to his audience that Oran as a town is isolated and disconnected. The plague

Read More

More about Literary Analysis: The Plague By Albert Camus

Related Topics

Open Document