The Plague by Albert Camus - 1001 Words

Running Out of Time Time is only running out, and it is one of the most vital and overlooked qualities of life. Albert Camus highlights the theme of time in his 1947 novel, The Plague. Through the use of allegory and point of view, Camus substantiates that when people are not aware of time and its advancing, they are wasting the precious and limited time of their lives. He constantly establishes that the amount of consciousness obtained by a person is the difference between spending time wisely and foolishly. In order to fully utilize it, people need to be aware of time and its passing. Camus uses point of view to demonstrate through Tarrou’s eyes his vision of time. â€Å"†¦Tarrou added: ‘Query: How contrive not to waste one’s time? Answer:†¦show more content†¦In its most basic sense, absurdity addresses the meaninglessness of life, with special attention directed to divine disavowal.† Jared White utilizes Absurdism to highlight the thoughts and meanings that go from individuality to the community. Absurdism is defined as the philosophy that humans live in essential isolation in an irrational and meaningless world. White says that when people realize their time has almost no value in the large scale, they give it up to the remainder of the world. He also claims that despite of the humans’ absurd settings, personal gains are favored. White makes clear that, taken literally, the plague of rats is an epidemic, but, symbolically, the plague of humans is a pandemic. The smaller outbreak only parallels the massive disease that people are infected with. White also argues that The Plague is in part a historical allegory, in which the plague signifies the German occupation of France from 1940 to 1944 during World War II. â€Å"In a deft narrative act, Camus allegorically uses the plague to consider not only his personal situation--sick, exiled, and restricted--but also the European conflict. Bernard further elaborates t hat Camus wrote La Peste with the plague as an obvious reference to â€Å"the kind of imprisonment [. . .] the Germans imposed on occupied France† (165).† Oran is cut off from the outside world, which is equivalent to France; the different attitudes of theShow MoreRelatedThe Plague By Albert Camus2232 Words   |  9 PagesNon-American Author Research: The Plague by Albert Camus The Plague by Albert Camus is a novel that forms themes around human suffering, greed, and religion. Although, most of the cultural points in this novel are based off of the authors own traditions and culture, the major things to focus on are the differences between history, culture, and religious beliefs between the novel and Oran, Algeria. In Camus’s story, the community of Oran is thrown into panic due to a plague spreading throughout the cityRead MoreThe Plague By Albert Camus1511 Words   |  7 PagesThe Plague It is always awful when an epidemic starts to spread out. Regardless of have severe it is, it always has bad consequences. These hard times often bring the citizen closer to each other and make them appreciate life more. In the book â€Å"The Plague† written by Albert Camus the readers get a sense of how incredibly the spread of a deadly disease is. In this case it is the plague. Throughout the novel, the author tells the reader through Dr. Rieux, which is actually the author but he talksRead MoreAnalysis Of The Plague By Albert Camus1101 Words   |  5 PagesThe novel, The Plague, written by Albert Camus, will be the focal point of the Multicultural essay. Further delving into Albert Camus and his life, he was a French philosopher, author, and journalist. At a young age, he lost his father due to an injury suffered during World War I, and was raised under the domineering hand of his grandmother alongside his mother (Lottman 52). Camus did exemplary in school and through his political engagement led him to join the Communist Party. Deeply advocating forRead MoreThe Plague by Albert Camus Essay1998 Words   |  8 PagesThe Plague by Albert Camus Albert Camus The Plague, takes place in the desert town of Oran, Algeria, in northern Africa. It is the perfect setting for this story to take place. The ordinariness of Oran is contrasted with the extraordinary business of the plague. Sprintzen points out that There is a mythic significance of Oran. Given the previous description of the quality of Oranian life, the selection of Oran as the location for the outbreak of plague should not come as a surprise(SprintzenRead MoreThe Holocaust And The Plague By Albert Camus1499 Words   |  6 PagesHolocaust and the plague the total is 90 million people, with 75 million people dying of the plague, and 15 million people died in the Holocaust. The Holocaust was the mass murder of certain groups of people that Hitler, the leader of the toleration state, disliked and wanted to get rid of. The plague happened in a very different fashion, it was the disease that spread quickly and was very contagious. In the book, The Plague by Albert Cam us, it describes what effect the plague had on the populationRead MoreCharacterization Of The Plague By Albert Camus2269 Words   |  10 PagesCharacterization of The Plague In this book The Plague by Albert Camus, it’s interesting to read as this book is centered in the fiction genre. Camus develops a story with characters who’s brought together by the natural disaster. I find the author’s plot, tone, and theme for the story satisfied about understanding survival. The story takes place in Oran, Algeria in the 1940s (World War II era). The author makes a reference about the real world’s bubonic plague in World War II that affect to otherRead MoreAnalysis Of Albert Camus The Plague Essay1395 Words   |  6 Pagesâ€Å"The evil in this world comes almost always from ignorance. Goodwill can cause as much harm as ill-will, if it lacks understanding.† Wrote Albert Camus in the plague. Today, more than ever, this quote is relevant in the context of Afghanistan, a country in the crossroads between South and Central Asia, country mired in conflict of varying intensity since 1979. In the history of Afghanistan, a state, in order to be deemed as legitimate, had to satisfy three preconditions. Firstly, it had to be aRead More Existentialism and Albert Camus The Plague Essay3940 Words   |  16 PagesExistentialism and The Plague      In the mid 1940s, a man by the name of Albert Camus began to write a story. This story he called La Pestà ©. Written in French, the novel became extremely popular and has since been translated numerous times into many languages. This story has been read over and over, yet it tells more than it seems to. This story tells the tale of a city gripped by a deadly disease. This is true enough, but this is not what the novel is about. The Plague can be read as an allegoryRead MoreCriticism Of Heroism In The Plague, By Albert Camus811 Words   |  4 PagesThe Plague, written by Albert Camus, is a story about a bubonic plague outbreak in the French Algerian city of Oran. â€Å"I tried so hard and got so far, but in the end it doesnt even matter.† This quote from the band, Lincoln Park, describes the Absurdist philosophy shown in the Plague. Camus brings the reader on a rollercoaster of heroism and self-sacrifice, just to drop them off at the fact that none of it mattered in the end. The story starts out by an unnamed narrator giving brief backgroundRead MoreSuffering And Morality In The Plague By Albert Camus711 Words   |  3 Pagesfrom a higher power, like the church. Institutions such as religion are a way of expressing morality and a means to cope with suffering, a crucial understanding of the human condition. In â€Å"The Plague† by Albert Camus, his construction of the human condition is centered on the catastrophic plague in the town of Oran. Dr. Bernard Rieux, an atheist, cures the victims of the town while simultaneously being an unbiased narrator to the events of the disaster. Other main characters, like the Christian