The Plague and World War II
Albert Camus lived through the horrors of the German occupation and the Holocaust. These two events undeniably influenced his novel, The Plague, which is often perceived as an allegory for the Resistance. Although the foe in The Plague is an impersonal, faceless bubonic plague, the allegory remains valid because it can be linked to any struggle, not only the Resistance. Therefore, the novel is also an allegory that transcends struggles against any form of totalitarianism because of its universal applications.
The quarantine wards resemble Nazi concentration camps. For instance, Rieux notes, “The walls served another purpose: they screened the unfortunates in quarantine from the view of the people on the road” (238). This forced separation of loved ones parallels the Nazi dehumanization and slaughter of Jews and others who were buried in mass pits like the victims of the plague (175). The government of Oran even sends armed forces to collect the diseased (90). Similarly, the Gestapo entered the homes of suspected dissenters who were usually never seen again. Later, the government of Oran forbids all residents and visitors from leaving the city, including French journalist Rambert, who has no relationship with Oran (106). Furthermore, communication with the outside world is centered in the hands of the government, which can be likened to Nazi Germany’s regulation and inspection of telegrams in Vichy France to undermine the Resistance.
Moreover, responses to the plague reflect those of England and France before Hitler’s invasion of Poland. No one wished to see war, thus a policy of appeasement became England’s reaction to German expansion and Italian invasion of Ethiopia. Likewise, in The Plague, the officials refused to acknowledge the gravity of the plague by labeling it a fever in official notices (51). Similarly, the old asthma patient who says the fever is an outbreak of cholera also symbolizes the responses of the public to the growing crisis (60). His denial of the plague echoes those who shuddered at the very idea of another World War and did not recognize the extent to which the Nazis annihilated European Jews.
The characters Cottard and Father Paneloux also represent different stances on the plague, which were evident during World War II. Cottard, the criminally minded neighbor of Grand, profits from smuggling rationed goods (140). Cottard interestingly parallels Oscar Schindler, who took advantage of Jewish slave labor to manufacture goods for Nazi Germany. Paneloux’s first sermon, which blames the people of Oran for the plague, is also comparable to many European attitudes to the World War II (95).
Thus, it is quite simple to see The Plague as an allegory for World War II. The conditions in the quarantine wards, the responses of the Oranais officials and inhabitants, and actions of the main characters establish the novel as a powerful metaphor for the War. However, Camus universalizes the struggle against the plague so that it applies to every resistance to oppressive systems, including fascism and communism.
The Moral Dialogue in The Plague
In Albert Camus’ novel, The Plague, Camus offers several interpretations of ethics through Rieux, Tarrou, Grand, Cottard, Paneloux, and the rest of the population. Each character is an abstract voice of various philosophical positions. Therefore, the novel should not only be read as an allegory of the German Occupation of France, but an exposition of the moral climate in the West, with sustained ethical tension to allow the reader to reach his or her own conclusion concerning the superior moral code.
According to John Krapp, Camus’s novel contains theoretical benchmarks to help the reader ascertain whether a specific moral voice supports an absolute or a contingent ethical position (Krapp 660). The character’s sensitivity to the contingency of ethical standards is predicated upon the character’s willingness to renounce the daily routine of habit, which dominated the lives of Oranais, and persevere in the fight against the plague (661). The above essentially asserts that each character’s moral code and willingness to change their lifestyle from the bourgeois mentality of the majority of Oranais, determines whether they survive the plague or not. Throughout the text, Rieux discloses information in an unbiased manner on the bourgeois existence of Oran’s inhabitants, who are enslaved by daily habit and routine. For example, they live empty lives devoted to “doing business (Camus 4). Their lives are so enthralled by the pursuit of wealth and the cultivation of habits that the city is soulless and lifeless even before the plague strikes. To survive the plague, one must avoid attachments to the ideology of comfort through commercial success, something the majority of Oranais do not do.
Unlike the greater part of Oran, Grand is not attracted to capitalist ideology. His reason for supporting Cottard after his suicide attempt is “one’s got to help one’s neighbor, hasn’t one (Camus 20)?” He conveys no desire to escape his moral responsibility to others. Additionally, Grand’s poverty after twenty-two years of promises of promotion never motivates him to join capitalist enterprises (44).
His ascetic life free of material desires allows Grand to avoid infection until his near-death experience with the plague. Krapp continues, “His belief that he might one day produce his flawless, referential sentence is, as I have noted, a potential distraction from moral thinking” (Krapp 672). Grand’s obsession with finding the right words for the first sentence of his letter distracts him, causing his infection until he requests Rieux burn his manuscript of fifty pages with variations of the same sentence (Camus 263). Grand’s miraculous resurrection after he ends his relentless pursuit of his absurd letter to Jeanne, suggests he is once again able to dedicate himself to fighting the plague.
On the other hand, Jesuit priest Father Paneloux’s morality is based on a belief in God and moral absolutism which Camus himself was known to disagree with. According to the absurdist school of thought, there is no intrinsic moral good. Instead, humans hold the potential for good and must bring it about themselves. In his first sermon, Father Paneloux blames the epidemic on the immorality of the townspeople (95).
After witnessing the agony of Magistrate Othon’s son, Father Paneloux’s next sermon, directed at Rieux, states people must believe or deny everything because God is testing their faith (223). Therefore, the death of the child is necessary for spiritual hunger (226). By suggesting one should love what one does not understand, Paneloux’s sermon implies loving an abstraction and challenges Rieux’s moral relativism. However, Paneloux does not leave the fate of Oran in God’s hands. He joins Rieux’s sanitation workers to combat the epidemic until he catches a fever without the symptoms of the plague and dies. However, it is likely his death was caused by an internal conflict between his religious views and the reality of the situation in Oran. His moral code is initially based solely on faith, but even he doubts it as it becomes unclear if he is more devoted to a transcendental or human moral code. As Krapp observes, “Such an ethic is essentially an ideological buffer between human beings and unhappiness, since heaven awaits those who live justly even in misery” (Krapp 671).
Next, Cottard’s ethical position is solely founded upon an adherence to the bourgeois pursuit of capital. The only character in the novel that fears the conclusion of the epidemic, Cottard profits from smuggling rationed goods in Oran (Camus 140). He dreads the coming of the police, whom he believes will come to arrest him for a crime committed in his youth. He is not interested in developing solidarity against the plague, and hopes for the perpetual pursuit of wealth and return to life ruled by daily habit (Krapp 673). In fact, when Tarrou asks him to become a member of his crew of sanitation volunteers, Cottard refuses because he is making too much money (Camus 158). Cottard also perpetuates the class divisions associated with capitalism by the sale of provisions at exorbitant prices to the wealthiest sector of society while the poor went short of everything (237). His lack of moral consciousness reflects the infectious capitalist frame of mind that rules Oran before and after the plague.
Alternatively, Tarrou does possess an ethical position that motivates him to form a team of sanitation workers to fight the plague. Of all the principal characters, Tarrou possesses the clearest credentials for an influential moral voice. Though once an agitator against the death penalty, Tarrou could not participate in any party willing to sacrifice human lives for the building up of a new world in which murder would cease to be (250). When Rieux inquires about his moral code, Tarrou simply says, “Comprehension” (130). Tarrou’s sense of ethics is undoubtedly humanist. For example, Tarrou initiates the sanitation volunteer group so condemned prisoners would not be killed doing the necessary manual labor to restrict the spread of the plague (124). His belief in a world divided into pestilences, victims, and rare true healers also illustrates his desire to discover the path to peace by alleviating the damage of the pestilence to the people of Oran (254). To Tarrou, the plague is man’s tendency to murder his fellow man (254), therefore his resistance to the epidemic is symbolic of his internal conflict between killing and assisting humankind.
Finally, Rieux, the narrator of the novel, endeavors to preserve ethical conflict between the characters but is clearly more related to Tarrou than any other character. His reason for fighting the plague is logic, not heroism (133). Thus, it is absurd to not battle the plague because fatalism has no meaning to him. He chose the career of a doctor to alleviate suffering, not accept it, nothing like Paneloux’s acceptance of the death of the Magistrate’s son as part of God’s plan (218). Rieux also gives value to life by opposing death, which is absurdist thinking because he creates his own meaning of life. Rieux is even sensitive to social injustice, something he reveals when he does not charge a poor patient, unlike the bourgeois residents of Oran. However, Rieux discloses information in an impartial style to convince the reader which ethical position is best.
In conclusion, the main characters of the plague represent different ethical perceptions on humankind. From Tarrou’s humanism to Cottard’s self-centered, capitalistic principles, Rieux presents several ethical attitudes, including his own absurdist interpretations of the moral dialogue in the novel.
The Impact of Camus’s Life on His Writing
Like all writers, Albert Camus’s personal life permeated his writing. His family, poverty, Algerian upbringing, and experience during the Second World War deeply influenced his writings regarding philosophy, colonialism, war, sentiments of solidarity, and his humanist ethical position. In The Plague, Camus deftly weaves an unforgettable tale that utilizes all aspects of his life.
Born in Mondovia, Algeria, 1913, Camus was part of the community of pied-noir, or European settlers in Algeria. Colonized by the French in 1830, many Southern Europeans decided to migrate to the Mediterranean coastal of Algeria in search of a better life, including Camus’s French father and Spanish mother (Heims). Although he lived in Algiers, the capital of the colony, Camus used Oran, another coastal city for the setting of The Plague.
The almost complete absence of the autochthonous Arab population shows the depth to which Arabs are excluded in French Algeria. Although the journalist Rambert comes to Oran to write an article about the living conditions in the Arab quarter of the city, they are never alluded to again in the novel (Camus 83). Similarly, Camus wrote an article about the living conditions in Kabylia, a region of Algeria, for the anticolonialist and socialist newspaper, Alger Republicain (Heims). Paradoxically, Camus argued against French imperialism while simultaneously praising its influence on Algerians. As a pacifist, Camus disagreed with Jean Paul Sartre on the Algerian problem. Sartre, who was a Marxist, supported the National Liberation Front of Algeria’s (FLN) violent overthrow of French hegemony while Camus believed in a nonviolent resolution, which never materialized. In addition, Camus delivered a lecture entitled, ‘The New Mediterranean Culture” which omitted Arab and Muslim agency in the Mediterranean region and history (Foxlee 78). This exclusion of Arabs forces one to question Camus’s dedication to Algerian independence.
War also played a significant role in the life of Albert Camus. His father perished at the Battle of the Marne in 1914 during the First World War. Fatherless, Camus lived in squalid conditions (Heims). Furthermore, Camus joined the Resistance during World War II as an editor for the underground newspaper Combat after witnessing the execution of French Communist Gabriel Peri at the hands of the Germans (Aubrey). The quarantine wards, where victims of the plague are forcibly sent and buried in mass graves, indubitably demonstrate the insidious influence of World War II and the Holocaust on The Plague. Like France under German Occupation in 1940, Oran is separated from the rest of the world after the government closes the gates of the city and executes Jews, Communists, and revolutionaries. Moreover, Cottard, who is partially inspired by the Vichy government of Marshal Petain, collaborates with the plague to enrich himself at the expense of the French people like Petain’s collaboration with the Nazis.
Another theme explored in The Plague that is especially relevant to the life of Camus is solidarity. During his participation in the Resistance as a journalist for Combat, Camus learned to cooperate with others to survive the atrocities of German occupation. In the novel, solidarity becomes necessary to fight the plague because individual suffering is meaningless. Without a combined effort, it would be impossible to contain the epidemic. Nevertheless, their solidarity in volunteering in the sanitation squads and resisting the plague creates a meaning for their lives that surpasses individual needs and desires. This humanistic connection between the townspeople of Oran to toil for the collective good of society eventually spares the city from the onslaught of the plague.
Besides war and solidarity, Camus argues for ethical humanism in his essay “Reflections on the Guillotine. (Aubrey)” Supposedly stemming from a story his mother recounted about his father’s observation of an execution, Camus remained opposed to the death penalty and torture throughout his life. Camus's arguments included blaming the society that produced the criminals, human fallibility in making judgments, the hypocrisy behind the idea of capital punishment deterring criminals while the executions are committed in private, the role of alcohol in crimes, and the loss of basic human dignity suffered by the criminal (Aubrey).
Obviously, Tarrou exemplifies his opposition to capital punishment. The son of a prosecutor who enjoyed watching executions, Tarrou campaigns against it with a radical organization until told death is inevitable to abolish the death penalty (Camus 250). Tarrou is instinctually moved by the fact the man condemned by his father will be executed (248). Like Camus himself, Tarrou sees the loss of basic human dignity in every condemned man and knows each human being is plague-stricken. The plague, or the desire to inflict pain and murder fellow human beings permeates every aspect of human life, yet Tarrou continues to resist it (253) Thus, he believes it is his moral duty to develop the sanitation squadrons without the use of prisoners because such a thing is equivalent to the death sentence death (124).
As one can obviously see, Camus used aspects of his own experience in life to write the novel. His humble origins in Algeria, the effects both World Wars on his family, his involvement with the Resistance, and human rights inspired the symbolic plague, the bourgeois townspeople of Oran, and the principal characters of the novel. Every writer inescapably employs parts of his or her life to complete a novel. Camus is no exception.
Works Cited
Aubrey, Bryan. "Critical Essay on The Plague." Novels for Students. The Gale Group, 2003.
Camus, Albert. The Plague. Trans. Stuart Gilbert. New York. Vintage International, 1991.
Duarte, Jack. The Resistance. Bloomington: Authorhouse, 2005.
Foxlee, Neil. "Mediterranean Humanism or Colonialism with a Human Face? Contextualising Albert Camus' 'The New Mediterranean Culture'" Mediterranean Historical Review 21 (2006): 77-97.
Heims, Neil. "Camus, Albert." In Bloom, Harold, ed. Albert Camus, Bloom's BioCritiques. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishing, 2003. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= BCAC02&SingleRecord=True (accessed December 17, 2008).
Krapp, John. "Time and ethics in Albert Camus's The Plague." University of Toronto Quarterly 68 (1999). EBSCOhost. 10 Dec. 2008
McKee, Jenne. "Exile, Revolt, and Redemption: The Writings of Albert Camus." Bloom's Literary Reference Online.
Quinn, Edward. "Algerian War of Independence." History in Literature. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2004. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= HIL005&SingleRecord=True
Stephanson, Raymond. "The Plague Narratives of Defoe and Camus: Illness As A Metaphor." Modern Language Quarterly 48 (1987): 224-42. EBSCOhost. 9 Dec. 2008
Todd, Olivier. Albert Camus: A Life. Trans. Benjamin Ivry. New York: Knopf, 1997.
No comments:
Post a Comment