Lauren Schrager
Period 4
May 1, 2013
Courage in the Face of Hardship
The Plague, by Albert Camus, is a novel
documenting the horrific affects of an epidemic of the plague on the small town
of Oran. A central focus of the novel is on the plague’s progression through
the population of the town and the effects it has its citizens. While some
resort to violence it the resulting disarray, other’s step forward to face
their daunting opponent, willing to sacrifice everything to help fight it. The
novel focuses three characters: Dr. Bernard Rieux, Joseph Grand, and Raymond Rambert.
Through these characters and their adaptation to the plague one of the
underlying themes of the novel is illustrated: courage in the face of
adversity.
One
of the characters that display courage in the face of hardship is Dr. Rieux. He
works every day, all day, in the plague hospitals trying to fight the
increasingly fatal epidemic. If not informed by the narrator, the reader would
never know there was an underlying hardship in Rieux’s life. He commits himself
so whole-heartedly to the job it appears as if it is the only thing in his
life; his work appears to consume him entirely as he fights to save lives.
However, this is a misconception created by his courage and work ethic in
response to the epidemic. He has a sick wife in quarantine outside of the town.
He is subject to the same sense of isolation and separation that the rest of
the town feels. This is a feeling that drives many of the citizens, as seen
with Rambert initially, into listless hopelessness. This despair felt by the
citizens of the town who have been separated from a loved ones is felt so
acutely by the majority of the population that it is described for about one
hundred pages of the novel. This feeling is what dictates many peoples behavior
throughout this time. It leads to the increase of business in bars and
restaurants during this time of plague; these isolated individuals flock to
these places in an attempt to find some escape from their sense of loss. They
think that if they go to highly populated areas they will feel as sense of
community somehow, that their feeling of wholeness will be restored. Dr. Rieux,
throughout the novel, suffers from this same sentiment that drives the majority
of the town into desolation. However, Rieux doesn’t let it affect him. He
maintains complete control and focus over himself. Even when he has reason to
believe his wife’s situation has worsened – through her increasingly friendly
and optimistic telegraphs constructed to put him at ease – he never stops his
battle against his faceless opponent.
“Grand
was the true embodiment of the quiet courage that inspired the sanitary groups.
He had said yes without a moment’s hesitation and with the large-heartedness
that was second nature to him” (Camus, 135). Like Rieux, Grand is another character in this novel that
exhibits courage in the face of the adversity provided by the plague. Joseph
Grand is an elderly gentleman that has been stuck in the same temporary
position at the post office for twenty-two years. He is complacent – not a man
of action, never speaking up in regards to his boss’ exploitation of him. “All
he desired was the prospect of a life suitably insured on the material side by
honest work, enabling him to devote his leisure to his hobbies” (Camus, 44).
He
is not a capitalist, something that distinguished him from the majority of the
population of Oran. As seen described in the very beginning, and throughout the
town’s battle with the plague, the citizens of Oran are inherently concerned
with personal gain. This tendency of the town is so drastic that the narrator
notes it as a bad place for elderly people: for they will be left behind,
unattended to, as their families go off in pursuit of material gains. Despite
the overwhelming majority of his peers’ behavior, Grand is never driven by a
desire for material gains – he simply wishes to make enough to support himself.
This attitude further highlights Grand’s complacency: he cannot take action
even to benefit himself. He is neutral character is further defined by his
trouble with language, seen in his inability to write his book. He is stuck on
the first sentence. He is so reluctant to take action, so filled with
self-doubt and insecurity, that he is unable to move past even one single
written sentence and begin what he wants to be his grand venture into
literature. All of these factors contributing to the total blandness of Grand’s
character are why I found his bravery in the face of the plague so interesting;
this form of action taking is almost out of character for him. In volunteering
to work on the sanitation squads he is actively standing up for what he thinks
is right rather than letting external forces or people decide his fate for him.
Granted, he is only helping with registry and statistics, but it is still an
act to help the plague-fighting effort. He even eventually goes one step
further in this newfound trend of taking action; he begins doing much of his
work in the actual hospitals alongside Reiux. When thanked for volunteering he
replied: “Why, that’s not difficult! Plague is here and we’ve got to make a
stand, that’s obvious. Ah, I only wish everything were as simple!” (Camus, 134).
Grand was a formerly neutral character, a man of little ambition or sustenance.
However, when faced with the plague a change is seen in his character: he
becomes more of a man of action, sacrificing his own time and possible health
willingly in an effort to help fight the plague.
Raymond
Rambert is another individual on whose character the plague has had a profound
impact. He is a writer for a newspaper in Paris and happens to be in Oran on
assignment when the outbreak of the plague beings. He is consequently trapped
inside of Oran when the town is quarantined. He believes because he has no
attachment to the city he should therefore should be allowed to leave, despite
the quarantine. He has left his wife behind in Paris and is desperate to return
to her; it is this desperation that blinds him to his selfishness in his
endeavors to escape the town. He first goes to the Prefect’s office, explaining
how his “presence in Oran was purely accidental, he had no connection with the
town and no reasons for staying in it [therefore] he was surely entitled to
leave” (Camus, 84).
He
is unable to see the inherent selfishness in his actions: the whole town is in
quarantine, he can’t be the only one there by chance, yet he expects an
exception to be made in his case. In his appeal to Dr. Rieux to write him a
certificate of health Dr. Reiux explains to him that “there are thousands of
people placed as [he] is in this town, and there can’t be any question of
allowing them to leave it” (Camus, 86). Entire families have been separated as
a result of the quarantine, however Rambert is unable to gain perspective
because of his central focus of his own escape. He is persistent in his
desperation: appealing to every official in the town. His argument remaining “that
he was a stranger to [the] town and, that being so, his case deserved special
consideration” (Camus, 106). He is always met, however, with a response qualifying
that “a good number of other people were in a like case, and this his position
was not so exceptional as he seemed to suppose” (Camus, 106). Despite being met with this response at
every turn, he continues his frantic search for a way out of the town. The fact
that, despite receiving a similar response from everyone whom he tries to evoke
sympathy, he still maintains that his position is exceptionally important
illustrates how blinded to reason as a result of his desperation he is. After
exhausting all of his legal methods of escape, he beings contacting smugglers. Cottard
volunteers in his quest for illegal transport out of the city, however, as
Rambert is on the brink of escape the two smugglers with whom Cottard put him
in contact back out of the deal. By their absence the smugglers, who typically
brought lesser items such as notes in and out of the town, illustrate their
comprehension of the gravity of the town’s situation: they understand that by
smuggling one individual out of the town they could possibly risk catalyzing
the spread of the plague not just through surrounding areas, but because of its
high level of contagion, possibly the world. The fact that Rambert cannot
realize that not only would his escape from the town be unfair to the families
who have suffered separation as well, but could possibly cause a worldwide
epidemic, is incredible. More incredible still is that he could maintain the
value he places on his escape while continuing his acquaintance with Dr. Rieux
- and in turn being exposed to news of the devastation of the plague first hand,
as well as being privy updates as to its brutality and ease in spreading. His
relationship with Dr. Rieux serves to foil his character: he is desperate to
fulfill his own selfish desires and escape the town to return to his wife,
while Dr. Rieux steadfastly battles a seemingly endless plague while his wife’s
condition worsens in a sanatorium outside of the city. Before his
transformation as a result of the plague, Rambert’s weakness of character and
morals is seen highlighted through the foil Dr. Rieux provides by his strength
and devotion to fighting the plague, despite his own personal circumstances.
Rambert’s
transformation does not occur all at once; it begins with his request to “work
with [the sanitation squads] until [he finds] some way of getting out of the
town” (Camus, 164). It is catalyzed after an argument Rambert has in defending
his position of “living and dying for what one loves” - his wife. After Rieux vehemently
reassures him that he is not wrong in his personal quest for happiness, he is
informed that Rieux’s wife is in a sanitarium over a hundred miles away. This
display of silent strength on Dr. Rieux’s part – his encouragement of his friend
to find the happiness he himself is deprived of – is what finally resonated
with Rambert. After this argument Rambert comes to Dr.Rieux’s apartment and
signs on to help fight the plague. However, his transition is not complete here
for he still continues his quest to find a means of escape.
After
working for some time with the sanitation quads Rambert is finally successful
in his mission: he finds a way out of Oran. However, on the brink of escape his
character completes its transformation, he is unable to leave the town. Even
after Rieux “told him that was sheer nonsense; there was nothing shameful in
preferring happiness” (Camus, 209) to the suffering of the town, he chooses to
stay. After working with Rieux, Rambert realizes that he belongs in Oran,
“whether [he] want[s] it or not” (Camus, 209). He realizes that, like Rieux and
the majority of the town, he must sacrifice for the good of the whole. Be the
sacrifice choosing to stay and prohibiting the possible spread of plague, or
choosing to remain working in the hospital, Rambert finally realizes that his
personal plight insignificant in comparison to the plague and the misery it has
brought to everyone. Rambert, out of all the other character’s seen in the
novel, undergoes the most drastic transformation at the hands of the plague:
from a person entirely focused on achieving his own selfish goals to one who demonstrates
courage and chooses to sacrifice his own happiness and continue to battle the
formidable opponent that is the plague.
The
novel centers on the town of Oran’s struggle once infected with the bubonic
plague. Through the introduction of specific characters and omniscient
narration, the reader is granted insight into the character’s own internal
struggles and developments as a result of the plague. One of the predominant
themes in the book, as seen through highlighted through several main
characters, is courage in the face of hardship. Dr. Rieux, Grand, and Rambert
all suffer at the hands of the plague; however, they bravely choose to stay and
fight their formidable foe, even at the cost of their loosing loved ones, and
possibly their lives.
Works Cited
Camus, Albert, and Stuart Gilbert. The Plague. 1st American
ed. New York: A.A. Knopf, 1948. Print.
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