In Oran, people thought that other were going to take care of them, yet they did not feel the need to help anyone else. The concept of a hero is no longer clear, Dr.Rieux, the closest thing to our definition of a hero, was considered to be only a man serving his duties as a doctor. The novel makes it seem as if the real heros are just the people who live, those that succeed at living. Regarding the status of the plague, the people seem to be expecting for the government to find a solution to the plague. They have seemed to accept the circumstances and then assume a passive role to endure the plague. A character which I am very fond of is Grand. there is something inexplicapbly enticing about his pursuit for the perfect words. Like Lauren stated, he does bring a moment of levity amid the  ever so evident darkness of the plague. In my opinion it even sheds some light on the absurdities of the world, well in a small scale. His fixation on finding the perfect words inhibits him from completing the novel as a whole, very much like the people's fixation on their own suffereing inhibits them from working together to help those sick and evade contamination. In addition, a communal ego problem may also come in to play, this can be seen in the father that continues to take his children to eat at the hotel after their mother has been quarantined.

Source: x

This picture, in my opinion, resonates with the idea that was presented in this post. The horse blinders inhibit the horses to look at the big picture, in the same way that the people of Oran are blinded by their own selfish self-pitty. In the picture this comparison is represented in one. The is man "symbolically" wearing the horse blinders.