Albert Camus The Plague

A book of horrors, fear and death. “The Plague” is a book by Albert Camus which weaves these emotions and events into one suspenseful tale. Each paragraph and section is written and structured in such a way as to give the reader insight into the feelings of the victims of the plague, and to show somewhat of a theme. The passage from section 4, part 4, line number 1 to line number 35 gives us a glimpse of the melancholy of the people of Oran to their dead loved ones to the extent that they do not attend All Souls' Day, for they were thinking of them too much as it was. Albert Camus fills this passage with figurative devices, including, diction, personification, pathetic fallacy, metaphors, irony and a turning point. The first two paragraphs

The plague killed a lot of victims during the time of the 1348. Whole towns were whipped out, a quarter of Europe’s population was killed by the plague. The black death resulted in No one caring for money anymore which lead to small prices for everything. Cattle, sheep, crops, everything was left to itself and the Black Death also fell over animals. The black was killing everything in its path from animals to humans, doctors were dieing as well so there were very little doctors left to help. In the end it killed an estimated 1.5 million of the 4 million people living in Europe at that time. During the time of 1348 peasants went on strike and demanded higher wages, because there was barely anyone left to do specific jobs, so they demanded higher pay, or they would go else were to find someone offering a higher

Today I woke up on May 13th, 1350, I awoke up extra early to go pray for my best friend Percival to be ridden of the plague. Percival has had the plague for four days now and is in terrible condition. Since Percival was infected with the plague, I had to step up and do his share of work as well as mine. I really hope that Percival gets well soon. Right as I was leaving the church I heard my vassal calling my name and I started heading over to where he was at. When I saw my vassal, I saw my other fellow serfs being called out to go line up to be told our task for the day. After the other serfs were told their task I finally was told what my task of the day were. Angry, how I felt after being told my task for the day, I must harvest the

The Great Plague, lasting from 1665 to 1666, was the last major epidemic of the bubonic plague to occur in England. It happened within the centuries-long time period of the Second Pandemic, an extended period of intermittent bubonic plague epidemics which began in Europe in 1347, the first year of the Black Death, an outbreak which included other forms such as pneumonic plague, and lasted until 1750.[1]

Late Medieval Christianity in Europe was known for conflict and death. Terrible weather conditions made food production drop which led to starvation. A deadly plague, known as the Black Death, emerged. The economy was falling apart. Churches went from a place of safety to a place of wrongdoing, which ultimately led to the Hundred Years’ War. Despite this devastation, there was one influential mystic woman, Catherine of Siena, who was trying to bring everyone back to peace. Catherine devoted herself to religion at a young age. She wanted to work in the public and help everyone who was being affected by the plague, even with the risk of becoming infected herself. Since the Black Death started many significant issues that occurred in Europe during

“Ring around the rosy, a pocketful of posies. Ashes, ashes. We all fall down.” Many children sing this popular nursery rhyme around the globe; the origins of this seemingly innocent poem, however, derived itself in the thirteenth century. This tune originated during the time of a calamitous pandemic that struck the Eurasian continent. Commonly known as the Black Death, the plague is one of the most disastrous events in Europe’s natural history. England underwent serious modifications concerning it politically, socially, and economically as a result of the contagion. The Black Death, a plague that devastated Medieval England from 1347 to 1351, tremendously modified the Middle Ages; the pandemic contains a complex history that drastically altered England’s economy and people’s religious views.

Among one of the worst disastrous epidemics to ever have crawled across the globe was called the Black Death. The first known case of The Plague was reported in China in 224 B.C. although this is not the period in time when it would become its most dangerous. It is believed that because China was such an important trade center at the time, diseased animals and their infected fleas were unknowingly transported along with goods via The Silk Road to Western Europe and Asia. Centuries later, the Black Plague would rear its head and swallow nearly half of the world’s population, estimated at 40%, in a 5 year period. In Europe as The Plague swept its malevolent hand across the lands, 25 million people fell victim to this terrible disease. Believed to have begun in Asia from the fleas of rats, it hit Sicily in 1347 and spread throughout the Mediterranean Region, eventually hitting London in 1348, followed by Scandinavia and Russia quickly after. 6 Because the carriers of this bacterium tend to become dormant throughout the winter, each spring there would be a new flair in transmission, causing rising waves of panic throughout the land. However, when one talks about The Plague, there are actually different ways that the diseases that they are referencing, each with its own mode of transmission, list of symptoms, and plethora of treatments, both magic and medicinal, may manifest itself within humans.

The Black Death strangled Europe in a multitude of ways; economically, population wise, and society. The Black death struck Europe killing approximately 50% of the total population within Europe, the death of Europeans also lead to the death of the economy. Europe before the plague was known to be within the high middle ages period, or years leading up to the renaissance and wide acceptance of humanist ideals. “urban life reemerged, long—distance commerce revived, business and manufacturing innovated, manorial agriculture matured, and population burgeoned, doubling or tripling”, life was alive and well before the plague; however, these changes portend the coming of a disease as life and people began to make contact on a larger scale, diseases would use these contacts to spread mass hysteria and destruction like the black death (Routt). Economically the medieval age was solely

What would you do if a plague epidemic infected your city? In the book, The Plague by Albert Camus, a great sickness contaminates the city or Oran and numerous rats hurry into the open to die. Eventually the authorities put the whole city under quarantine, which angered citizens.

Albert Camus is considered one of the greatest existentialist writers of all time. However, although he was considered an existentialist writer, Camus never labeled himself as an existentialist. “No, I am not an existentialist”  (Albert Camus: Lyrical and Critical Essays, Vintage (1970)) Camus rejected in an 1945 interview, however in some of his literary works, some find that his writings are one of a true existentialistic thinker. Although many contrast these thoughts and believe that Camus was anything but a thinker of this philosophy, Camus is one of the main authors that people turn to research and read to understand the thinking of existentialism. One of his most famous books, The Plague, illustrates the need for a human to become an

Kameron Browning Ms. McRoberts Honors English III 26 November 2014 Seclusion and Perversion Anarchy. Chaos. Rebellion. Fear.

A Greek philosopher, Thucydides, once said “The secret to happiness is freedom... And the secret to freedom is courage” (Thucydides). Albert Camus, much like Nietzsche did not believe that death, suffering, or the human existence had any underlying moral or rational meaning due to the fact that he did not believe in God or even an afterlife for that matter. Nietzsche made those who read his Twilight of the Idols question the very premises of religion and what we think we know. Camus believed that human beings, as mortals, live under an irrational and an absurd death sentence, never really being able to live a free and meaningful life. Yet, Camus still believed that people were capable of giving their lives meaning and finally living their lives freely. In Albert Camus’ novel The Plague, the people of Oran believed that they were free, that is true, in the technical definition of freedom, but were they really free before the plague occured? Perhaps Camus and Nietzsche are asking human beings, how are they really free if they are living their lives in constant routines and believing in a God that they do not even know exists or not.

Albert Camus uses the narrative of The Plague to impose catastrophic and absurd suffering upon a town and examine how its inhabitants behave. Through the divergent characterization of a humanist Bernard Rieux and a pious Paneloux, Camus explores human responses to the inevitable problem of evil in order to insinuate that while enduring despair, reason will always win out over faith. Bernard Rieux, the main character (and narrator unbeknownst to the readers until the end), is Camus’ prominent advocate of the idea that a person should live life, not as an idealistic thinker but as a realistic, committed member of society. As a doctor, Rieux is the character that initiates immediate action against the imminent, rapidly spreading plague. He sees

The chapter opens with a Biblical parody of the times after the ten plagues that visited Egypt. This is a season of restoration and coming back of abundance. The plague was now receding with fewer deaths noted in a week and the destruction that had bee occasioned by the plague was getting compensated for. It is noted that "it was thought that a slight improvement in the food-supply could safely be counted on, and this would relieve what was just now the acutest worry of every household." (Camus, 1964:130). Here though the effect of the plague was felt by each individual household, there is hope and restoration seen ahead.

Albert Camus is a famous writer who discusses a wide variety of topics in his works. His account of the myth of Sisyphus touches on a topic that most writers are either afraid of or unwilling to talk about. This is the issue of suicide and how to deal with it as an individual and as a community. The principal point in the story by Camus is the presence of absurdity in our very existence. The presence of life and all living things that we are aware of is an absurdity according to Camus, who questions the plausibility of some people considering suicide to be the best solution to this absurdity. Having an understanding of the elements of nature that make up our world does not mean that it will ever be possible to understand—and fully appreciate—the reasons why our world is as it is. Whether one believes in God and the creation account, in the evolution process or in the Big Bang Theory among others is irrelevant because of the underlying absurdity to all of these scenarios (Camus 3). He writes that it was his intention to find the relationship between suicide and the absurd. This essay by Camus leads the reader to make an assessment of life and arrive at a suitable decision. This paper will provide a further understanding of these thoughts. This paper will show that life is simply meaningless but must be appreciated nonetheless.