Skipping Town

            In pages 80-86 Rieux encounters Raymond Rambert, a journalist who interviewed him earlier in the novel. Raymond is still trapped in the city due to the quarantine and is desperate to get out. I believe Raymond Rambert serves to convey the feelings of all the people stuck in the city who are not permanent residents. He has tried everything he can to leave. He was even able to “thanks to his professional status, pull some strings, [and secure] and interview with a high official in the Prefect’s office.”(84) Nevertheless he is still trapped in this foreign place where he knows no one and has no home of his own. His desperation is further highlighted when he asks the doctor to write him a letter that he is not infected in order to help him convince the prefect to let him out of the city. The doctor refuses stating that this attempt is obviously futile, but I feel that his inability accept the fact that he is stuck in the city is a feeling that is most of these “outsiders” have. Lastly, the doctor gives Raymond an important message, “as a journalist, [Raymond] had an excellent subject to his hand in Oran”, (85) in other words there is a bright side to all this and I think what Albert Camus is trying to convey is that people have to stop worrying about what they can’t change and focus on the bright side of the situation.