Hopelessness in Albert Camus' The Plague and Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot
Does Existentialism deny the existence of God? Can God possibly exist in a world full of madness and injustice? Albert Camus and Samuel Beckett address these questions in The Plague and Waiting for Godot. Though their thinking follows the ideals of existentialism, their conclusions are different.
Camus did not believe in God, nor did he agree with the vast majority of the historical beliefs of the Christian religion. His stance on Christianity is summed up most simply by his remark that "in its essence, Christianity (and this is its paradoxical greatness) is a doctrine of injustice. It is founded on the sacrifice of the innocent and the acceptance of this sacrifice" (Bree 49). Camus felt that Jesus Christ was an innocent man who was unjustly killed. This does conflicts with all of Camus' values. However, Camus did not believe that Jesus was the son of God.
Camus' inability to accept Christian theology is voiced in The Plague by Riex and juxtaposed against the beliefs preached by Father Paneloux (Rhein 42). Paneloux's attitude toward the plague contrasts sharply with Rieux's. In his first sermon, he preaches that the plague is divine in origin and punitive in its purpose. He attempts to put aside his desires for a rational explanation and simply accepts God's will. In this way he is not revolting and therefore falls victim to the plague.
Father Paneloux's belief that there are no innocent victims is shaken as he watches a young boy die of the plague. Camus purposefully describes a long, painful death to achieve the greatest effect on Paneloux: "When the spasms had passed, utterly exhausted, tensing his thin legs and arms, on which, within forty-eight hours, the flesh had wasted to the bone, the child lay flat, in a grotesque parody of crucifixion" (215). Paneloux cannot deny that the child was an innocent victim and is forced to rethink his ideas.
During his second sermon, a change is seen in Father Paneloux. He now uses the pronoun "we" instead of "you," and he has adopted a new policy in which he tells people to believe "all or nothing" (224). Father Paneloux, as a Christian, is faced with a decision: either he accepts that God is the ultimate ruler and brings goodness out of the evil that afflicts men, or he sides with Rieux and denies God.
In the playwright Hamlet by William Shakespeare, Hamlet often shows many signs of depression. It is argued whether he is putting on the act, or if he is actually severely depressed. I believe after the death of his father, Hamlet becomes very emotionally unstable. Three things affect Hamlet, the death of his father, the remarriage of his mother, and Ophelia. Hamlet contemplates death, and becomes prepared to die near the end of the play.
Stetson, James B. Narrative of My Experiences in the Earthquake and Fire at San Francisco. Palo Alto, CA: Lewis Osborne, 1969. Print.
... Bass, A. N., & Yeargain, J. W. (2007). You Belong to Me: Employer Attempts to Keep Employees from Quitting to Work for competitors Via Non-Compete Agreements in Employment Contract acts. Journal of Legal, Ethical and Regulatory Issues, 10(2), 13-23. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/216238808?accountid=32521
Hamlet prince of Denmark, an astute young man whose character seems to be experiencing sadness, mixed with grief and anger due to recent events. He is also a student attending the University of Wittenberg who is being pressured in to dropping out of university by his mother, Queen Gertrude, and his uncle Claudius (Shakespeare 1.2.110-119). Hamlets mother soon marries his uncle Claudius, shortly after the death of his father King Hamlet (Shakespeare 1.2.175-183), whose ghost is now being seen by Hamlet himself and urges him to defend his death by killing his uncle Claudius who he claims to have murdered him (Shakespeare 1.5.30-43).
Rieux seems to influence the readers perspective by seemingly suggesting that societal order was breaking down at the time thus making the plague seem even more grim. In addition during a discussion with Tarrou, Dr. Rieux’s reveals that he is an atheist Tarrou also does the same during the discussion between two of them this is later reinforced when Rieux addresses the priest Paneloux over the death of Jacques Othon a young child who suffered greatly before his death and was also the son of the conservative magistrate M. Othon. Rieux states “No, Father. I’ve a very different idea of love. And until my dying day I shall refuse to love a scheme of things in which children are put to torture.”(218). This also affects his view of the plague as an atheist he does not believe in an afterlife which not only increases the feeling of urgency in curing those infected but also heightens the emotional impact of each death and also increases pressure on Rieux which will also influence his thinking. During a conversation between Dr. Rieux and Tarrou they also put a spin on how the plague is viewed during a discussion “Tarrou nodded. “Yes. But your victories will never be lasting; that’s all.” Rieux’s face darkened. “Yes, I know
is his duty. Throughout the course of the plague we see that Rieux maintains faith in his
... for this stronger progressive mindset is that by better understanding the many different social structures, I feel that I better grasp how I can go ahead and change the world around me. Having this strong sociological imagination actually empowers me because by better understanding how the world works, I can go ahead and try to shape those social structures to more positive and progressive ideals. Therefore, I appreciate my sociological imagination, because I believe it empowers me to actually go out and make a difference in the world.
In Les Misérables, Jean Valjean’s lengthy stay in prison disillusioned him to the idea of God, with his “realities [becoming] full of specters” (92). He cast away any notions of a higher power watching over him, damning his soul for eternity even as he was liberated from his shackles in Toulon. The Bishop’s subsequent introduction to Valjean’s newly freed life is the catalyst needed to spark a flame of passion for God in his soul; his presence in the convict’s life is also a much-needed warning that “liberation is not deliverance” (96). An anointed man of God fulfilled his purpose in Valjean, saving him “from the spirit of perdition,” and becoming for him a door to a new life as a son of God (104). Before he could explore this new avenue, though, Valjean had to learn a key lesson that would become one of many themes found in Les Misérables. In order to be truly free, Jean Valjean had to reconcile with the truth that only God alone could save him from his own mind, which was frequently tortured with “a frightening accumulation of laws, prejudices, men, and acts… whose weight appalled him”; only then could he leave the past behind (91). Likewise, in "A Fight With A Cannon", the gunner’s futile and courageous efforts to thwart the cannon’s blazing path of destruction yielded no progress until an older man on board the ship who
Investigative Reports: Inside the Killer's Mind. Perf. Arthur Shawcross. A&E Television Networks, 2000. Web. 28 Feb. 2014.
This argument needs to be proven either for or against because with people alleging the organization of can either bring them down or uprise them.
“The plague is lethal but it has no rationale. It is a force as opaque as it is deadly” (Jones 1). The plague has no reason for who it kills and who it affects, it cares to survive. Death knows no boundaries as long as the body alive, the plague will eat away at it until death comes and takes its place. “It seemed that, for obvious reasons, the plague launched its most virulent attacks on those who lived, by choice or by necessity, in groups: soldiers, prisoners, monks, and nuns” (Plague 169). Camus is describing that no matter who they are or what rank in society they are, the plague does not care, neither does death. Their wealth or good deeds cannot be avoided. Father Paneloux, Tarrou and Rieux pay witness to the grip of the plague on a little boy. Step by step they watch as he convulses and writhes in pain. The serum is no help to the boy. Soon the life is sucked from him and he goes limp, finally in peace. The men had seen death in plague patients before, but not like this. Never had they seen it from infantry. The boy’s death forever alters them, knowing that he was innocent and did not deserve the cruel ending he was given. The plague’s death count rapidly rises each day. The amount of dead bodies per day becomes a game of Tetris to find a spot to put them. The cemeteries are full and overflowing. They are taking up bodies from old graves and cremating them to make room for plague victims. Past curfew is the time to bury the bodies because doing it during the daytime would create a public spectacle, although, “The few belated wayfarers...often saw the long white ambulances hurtling past, making the nightbound streets reverberate with the dull clanger of their bells” (Plague 177). Ambulances are limitless hearses to the countless dead bodies. The townsfolk are used to this new routine the plague brought to them: death and more death. For them the ending is so far away
Galtung, J. (1969). Violence , Peace and Peace Research. Journal of Peace Research , 6 (3), 167-191.
In Shakespeare's play Hamlet, the Eponymous struggles with his father’s death and is unable to move on, like everyone else, until he finds justice in the truth. His two friends, Guildenstern and Rosencrantz were sent to spy on young Hamlet by his mother, Queen Gertrude, and his uncle and newly dad, King Claudius. In hopes the friends could help the worried parents understand why Hamlet is so sad the two talk to Hamlet and attempt to resolve this issue. Instead Hamlet, like usual, outwits his parents and friends and concludes that his two supposedly “friends” have been spying on him. Hamlet’s monologue, although does not tell the full truth is still not a lie about how Hamlet feels and why his depression has taken over his whole life. Hamlet
In Albert Camus’s novel, The Plague, the characters were brought together as a community because of the rat-induced Black Plague. As Dr. Rieux discovered that the gathering of all the dead rats has caused the epidemic to exacerbate, he and the other doctors urged the authorities to place Oran under quarantine; therefore not letting any of the civilians to be able to make contact with anyone other than with the people in the city. Initially, the civilians acted selfish and only cared for his own life, which is evident in the first part of the novel, “In this respect our townsfolk were like everybody else, wrapped up in themselves; in other words they were humanists: they disbelieved in pestilences.” The authorities also chose to ignore this
Most existentialists are atheists; they reason that a certain sense of responsibility is adopted when choosing to be independent of a deity and the entire obligation that comes with it. They firmly stay grounded on the theory that it is the mind and intelligence that springs from matter. Both modes of thought consisted of a logical reasoning that tried to extinguish the anxiety of not knowing the nature of the divine ( Roca and Schuh