The rats in themselves are a big foreshadowing of the disaster to come. Starting off one by one they die a gory death and litter the streets with their corpses. The people did not know what to make of these corpses, and doing as people do, they all had an opinion and a theory of what had happened to those rats. Much like the glimpses we get in the first pages of the “fever” going around that ends fatally. People talk amongst themselves, creating rumors and spreading false information. Of the characters presented so far in the novel, only Jean Tarrou has gotten the feeling that the rat deaths were just the beginning of something even worse. He wrote down a conversation between himself and the night watchman of the hotel, which also serves as foreshadowing, about how he was unsure of what disaster was coming, but surely one was imminent. The introduction of death was slow, but it began very early in the novel with the first dead rat spotted by the doctor, then the three that the concierge had found, and it just builds up to 8,000 rats on the street, until the first human life was lost. This deliberate introduction of death in the novel prepares the reader for the full blown epidemic that ensues and makes the reader more “comfortable” with the topic of death.
Rats in most works of literature are a symbol of pestilence and filth. The Plague is no different; the rats foreshadow the coming disease, as they die horrible deaths and liter the streets with their corpses, without any real explanation. As the numbers of dead rats increases from one or two to the 8,000 a day reported by the news, the people begin to panic and begin to invent irrational explanations to this strange and horrifying phenomenon, as is human nature when something this gruesome goes unexplained for too long. Dr. Bernard Rieux seems to be the only one who is calm in spite of resent developments and is not jumping to rash conclusions. As real panic begins to ensue, the rats seem to magically disappear but strangely enough people begin to appear with strange symptoms. This gradual transition from the rats to humans allows for a smoother story that builds suspense and keeps the readers wondering what is really going on. One last point of foreshadowing was the journalist, Raymond Rambert, who questions Dr. Rieux on the living conditions of Arab population, specifically their sanitation conditions. This serves further to emphasize the way these people are living and establish this breading ground for disease. This age-old symbol of the rats, the filth in the streets and the symptoms that M. Michel develops points strongly to the bubonic plague, though it still remains uncertain.
The rats in themselves are a big foreshadowing of the disaster to come. Starting off one by one they die a gory death and litter the streets with their corpses. The people did not know what to make of these corpses, and doing as people do, they all had an opinion and a theory of what had happened to those rats. Much like the glimpses we get in the first pages of the “fever” going around that ends fatally. People talk amongst themselves, creating rumors and spreading false information. Of the characters presented so far in the novel, only Jean Tarrou has gotten the feeling that the rat deaths were just the beginning of something even worse. He wrote down a conversation between himself and the night watchman of the hotel, which also serves as foreshadowing, about how he was unsure of what disaster was coming, but surely one was imminent. The introduction of death was slow, but it began very early in the novel with the first dead rat spotted by the doctor, then the three that the concierge had found, and it just builds up to 8,000 rats on the street, until the first human life was lost. This deliberate introduction of death in the novel prepares the reader for the full blown epidemic that ensues and makes the reader more “comfortable” with the topic of death.
ReplyDelete"Them rats! Them damned rats!"- M. Michel (21)
ReplyDeleteRats in most works of literature are a symbol of pestilence and filth. The Plague is no different; the rats foreshadow the coming disease, as they die horrible deaths and liter the streets with their corpses, without any real explanation. As the numbers of dead rats increases from one or two to the 8,000 a day reported by the news, the people begin to panic and begin to invent irrational explanations to this strange and horrifying phenomenon, as is human nature when something this gruesome goes unexplained for too long. Dr. Bernard Rieux seems to be the only one who is calm in spite of resent developments and is not jumping to rash conclusions. As real panic begins to ensue, the rats seem to magically disappear but strangely enough people begin to appear with strange symptoms. This gradual transition from the rats to humans allows for a smoother story that builds suspense and keeps the readers wondering what is really going on. One last point of foreshadowing was the journalist, Raymond Rambert, who questions Dr. Rieux on the living conditions of Arab population, specifically their sanitation conditions. This serves further to emphasize the way these people are living and establish this breading ground for disease. This age-old symbol of the rats, the filth in the streets and the symptoms that M. Michel develops points strongly to the bubonic plague, though it still remains uncertain.
ReplyDelete