Possible Theme: Freedom and Confinement

Another possible theme for the end of the year term paper is the idea of freedom and confinement. The situation that the people of Oran are in is an interesting one. They are physically isolated, struggling for survival, but are they truly trapped? One can consider freedom to not be a physical state of being, but a mental capacity. The people are free to think and pursue what they wish inside Oran. People such as Cottard are now free of fear from the authorities and thus are more in a sense "free" than they were before the plague. Therefore, freedom is in each and every character, and how they act to embrace it.