When people are faced with tough situations they tend to lose control of their emotions, and let their emotions control their actions. It is in these situations, that people must control their emotions the most so that they can focus on solving the problem. The absurd situation in the small, African town of Oran is an unstoppable plague that strikes the town causing many to die at the hand of nature’s most merciless creation. Albert Camus, in his novel The Plague, demonstrates that life is absurd and meaningless through the random deaths of the towns people and the seemingly unstoppable plague. Doctor Bernard Rieux, in Camus’ novel realizes that the situation is absurd, but he continues to do what needs to be done. Rieux’s job as a doctor is to care for the plague-stricken victims and help relieve their suffering, but no matter what he does, his patients end up dying. To combat his emotions, Rieux embraces an apathetic attitude towards the absurd situation to continue his duty as a doctor. Characteristics such as these define Rieux as the absurd hero. The concept of the absurd hero is used to develop Doctor Rieux in Albert Camus’ The Plague, as he struggles to continue doing what needs to be done while facing the absurdity of his situation.
Rieux’s ability to combat his emotions to do what needs to be done defines him as the absurd hero; he is conscious of the absurdity of his predicament, yet “he continues to perform his duty no matter how useless or how insignificant his action” (Lane). Absurdity can be defined as “life, devoid of God and constantly faced with evil forces, with no ultimate rational meaning” (Sollars). Absurdity is evident throughout the novel as the small town of Oran is infected by a plague. Camus demonstrat...
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...low Doctor Rieux to be apathetic towards the people’s suffering. With his emotions controlled, Rieux can continue to do what needs to be done in the absurd circumstances.
The concept of the absurd hero is used to develop Rieux as a character as he struggles in doing what needs to be done during the absurd circumstances. To counter this struggle, Rieux becomes apathetic so his mind does not focus on his emotions, but on the task required of him. As Rieux develops an apathetic attitude toward the plague, he dissociates himself in order to relieve himself from the suffering he witnesses everyday. Albert Camus develops Rieux as this hero of the absurd with the situations he faces. These absurd situations in reality cause many people to become stressed and emotional because they panic. The realization that life is absurd can bring people freedom from worry and emotion.
Dr. Rieux is absolutely an absurd hero because he does what he has to do. He still works as a doctor instead of hiding in fear, hoping to not get the plague like many other of the citizens. Of course, he does not want to fall ill, but he knows that should not stop him from completely ignoring his duties. Unlike many of his fellow citizens who just cowered in their home, he realizes his responsibility and lived up to his specific duty. Everyone’s belief was that the whole city is condemned to die, which was influenced by the priest's sermon, stating this is punishment for the sins of the townspeople, but Dr.Rieux ignored that and stayed to fight. "There's no question of heroism in all this. It's a matter of common decency. That's an idea which may make some people smile, but the only means of fighting a plague is – common decency." (Camus, The Plague). He does not give up and he does not show weakness. Dr. Rieux has a very similar personality to the character Sisyphus in The Myth of Sisyphus. Sisyphus is sentenced to roll a rock to the top of the mountain and then watch it roll back down, for eternity. “Man...
...he reader that Rieux is Camus' hero. It is precisely this sense of "common decency" which sets him apart, renders him uncommon in a town of men exiled from eachother by selfishness. Rieux is not searching for anything, he is merely doing what has to be done to fight the plague. His will to see man healed has freed him from his own search, and thus from exile; no longer in exile, Rieux has found eternal kingdom.
The Plague, written by Albert Camus, is a triumph of literary craft. Camus created a commentary on the way humans react to trying situations and circumstances in his fictional city of Oran in North Africa. The reader is presented with Oran as a city of several hundred thousand people. All of whom seem to take life for granted. The people of Oran ar constantly driven by business or money and only stop for life's finer pleasures on the weekends. A fairly accurate parallel to today's world. When an outbreak of plague begins in Oran, nobody pays attention at first. When the problem becomes too big to be ignored, the city is taken somewhat by surprise and placed under quarantine. The city remains isolated from the outside world for over a year, and when the outbreak reaches its peak, hundreds are dying every day.
The Plague (French, La Peste) is a novel written by Albert Camus that is about an epidemic of bubonic plague. The Plague is set in a small Mediterranean town in North Africa called Oran. Dr. Bernard Rieux, one of the main characters, describes it as an ugly town. Oran’s inhabitants are boring people who appear to live, for the most part, habitual lives. The main focus of the town is money. “…everyone is bored, and devotes himself to cultivating habits. Our citizens work hard, but solely with the object of getting rich. Their chief interest is in commerce, and their chief aim in life is, as they call it, 'doing business’” (Camus 4). The citizens’ unawareness of life’s riches and pleasures show their susceptibility to the oncoming plague. They don’t bother themselves with matters not involving money. It is very easy for the reader to realize that they are too naive to combat the forthcoming calamity. The theme of not knowing life is more than work and habits will narrow the people’s chances of survival. Rieux explains that the town had a view of death as something that happens every day. He then explains that the town really doesn’t face towards the Mediterranean Sea. Actually it is almost impossible to see the sea from town. Oran is a town which seems to turn its back on life and freedom. The Plague was first published in 1948 in France. “Early readers were quick to note that it was in part an allegory of the German occupation of France from 1940 to 1944, which cut France off from the outside world; just as in the novel the town of Oran must close its gates to isolate the plague” (“The Plague” 202). When the plague first arrives, the residents are slow to realize the extreme danger they are in. Once they finally become aware of it...
The emotionless anti-hero, Monsieur Meursault, embarks on a distinct philosophical journey through The Stranger. Confident in his ideas about the world, Meursault is an unemotional protagonist who survives without expectations or even aspirations. Because of his constant indifference and lack of opinions about the world, it can be denoted that he undergoes a psychological detachment from the world and society. It is through these characteristics that exist in Meursault that Camus expresses the absurd. Starting from the very first sentence of the book, “Maman died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don’t know.” (Camus 1) The indifferent tone from these short sentences convey a rather apathetic attitude from Meursault’s part. Not only does he not feel any sorrow, he also “felt like having a smoke.” (Camus 4) Communicating perfectly Meursault’s disinterest, “[he] hesitate, [he] didn’t know if [he] could do it with Maman right there. [He] thought it over; it really didn’t matter.” (Camus 4) The death of his mother prompts an absurdist philosophy in which he experiences a psychological awakening and begins to place no real emphasis on emotions, but rather on the physical aspect of life.
The plague affected people not only on a physical level but a mental one as well. The mental health of the citizens of Oran was amongst the plague's many victims, it suffered of exhaustion as well as being forced to handle mental confrontations. When the citizens dealt with these issues, some people lost their capacity to love as intently, but overall the general capacity of people to uphold their devotion remained resilient to the challenges the plague provided.
...able option. Camus’s main character, Meursault, embodies this third option; by accepting his circumstances and being indifferent to them, Meursault is able to break free of all possible causes of anxiety and find happiness. Furthermore, Meursault’s rejection of religion as belief, his acceptance of the “benign indifference of the universe”, and his acceptance of his circumstances all leading to happiness personifies Camus’s take on Absurdism, the philosophy that Camus is trying to depict in The Stranger (76). By using foil characters to contrast Meursault in actions or personality, Camus creates several polarizing situations, making Meursault the extreme epitome of Absurdism in every contrasting relationship and thus, shining light on his ideology in the process.
Albert Camus’s The Plague is a novel about an ordinary town that is suddenly stricken by plague. A few of Camus’s philosophies such as the absurd, separation, and isolation are incorporated in the events of the story. The absurd, which is the human desire for purpose and significance in a meaningless and indifferent universe, is central to the understanding of The Plague. In The Plague, Camus uses character development and irony to show that even through the obvious superiority of the universe, man is in constant effort to outlive the absurd. The Plague is crafted around the belief that humans live life in search of a value or purpose that will never be revealed to them because it does not exist.
In Camus there is a precise use of the word "absurd". "Absurd" comes from the Latin surdis and in surdis we have a dual definition: it means irrational, insensible (from that side of it we still use the word in mathematics; a 'surd' is an irrational number). But Camus concentrates on the other meaning which comes from the root. That is, "deaf, silent". There are many examples in literature of this particular kind of silence. I think of Romeo and Juliet when Juliet has been ordered by her parents to marry the County Paris, and in one of Shakespeare's best scenes in that play, he has Juliet's father talking...
The Plague by Albert Camus takes place in an Algerian city known as Oran. Rats that are infected with a vicious disease known as “the plague” invade the city and nearly wipe out half of the population. This disease takes a toll on the citizens of Oran, which make them turn on each other and for some, they question the existence of God. Religion plays a huge roll in The Plague and Camus speaks through his characters and incorporates his views on religion. Camus uses Father Paneloux, the priest in the city, to argue whether or not God is the reason for this chaos.
An absurdist tends to discover meaning despite living in a meaningless world and are unable to fully accept and understand that every life ultimately ends. Depending on a person’s ethics and morals, some indications can be made on how someone’s life may transpire with each differing and playing a role. These people often partake in unethical and immoral actions, aware of it or not, in order to achieve some type of meaning in their absurdist life. In the novel The Fall, by Albert Camus is about an Absurdist man who used to be a judge penitent in Paris before he moves to Amsterdam. While living in Paris, Clamence lives a life full of lies as he views himself superior, as he tends to help the least fortunate. In reality, his motives are flawed
Albert Camus was a French writer who was very well known all over the world for his different works but especially with the idea of “absurdism”. Camus believed that something that was absurd was not possible by humans or logically. It was beyond ridiculous and therefore impossible. This was the basis of one of his most famous works, The Plague. The Plague is a novel that explores aspects of human nature and condition, destiny, God, and fate. The novel is about a plague that takes place in Oran, Algeria that is fictional, but it’s believed to be relatively based on a cholera outbreak in the mid 1800’s in Oran that killed thousands of people. Dr. Bernard Rieux is the protagonist but also is the narrator. However, he doesn’t admit to being the narrator until the end of the novel. Camus writes in the beginning that the instances in Oran are being told by witnesses of the plague. In The Plague, Camus wants his audience to read the book unbiasedly not knowing the narrator in order to take sides with the characters that one wants to and not to be persuaded by the narrators telling of the events.
In many works of literature, a character conquers great obstacles to achieve a worthy goal. Sometimes the obstacles are personal impediments, at other times it consists of the attitude and beliefs of others. In the book The Stranger by Albert Camus, shows the character Meursault who is an emotionless character that let’s other people show their opinions and emotions into him, giving him a type of feeling even if Meursault doesn’t care. Meursault is a victim of emotional indifference between his friends and social indifference. This essay will be about the character’s struggle that contributes to the meaning of the work as a whole.
The trial and conviction of Meursault represents the main ideals of absurdism, that truth does not exist, and life is precious. The trial is used to portray the jury’s attempt to place a proper verdict on Meursault as mankind’s attempt to find order in an irrational universe. Camus believed these attempts were absurd, because there is no real truth in the world. The entire trial is then just an example of absurdity.
In 1962, writer Mark Esslin took pleasure in composing the novel Theatre of the Absurd and quickly became a major influence on the works of many inspired writers. Esslin subsequently made ensuing plays and stories which focused on nonspecific existentialist concepts and which did not remain consistent with his ideas, rejecting the “narrative continuity and the rigidity of logic.” As a result, the protagonist of these stories is often not capable of containing himself within his or her disorderly society (“Theatre”). Writer Albert Camus made such an interpretation of the “Absurd” by altering the idea into his view of believing it is the rudimentary absence of “reasonableness” and consistency in the human personality. Not only does Camus attempt to display the absurd through studied deformities and established arrangements; he also “undermines the ordinary expectations of continuity and rationality” (“The Theatre”). Camus envisions life in his works, The Stranger and “The Myth of Sisyphus,” as having no time frame or significance, and the toiling endeavor to find such significance where it does not exist is what Camus believes to be the absurd (“Albert”).