The Plague: Analysis of Major Characters
"The Plague" by Albert Camus explores the experiences of a group of characters during a devastating outbreak in Oran, Algeria. Central to the narrative is Dr. Bernard Rieux, a dedicated physician whose unwavering commitment to treating plague victims highlights the struggle against despair in the face of overwhelming suffering. Rieux's character embodies the medical profession's ethical duties, showcasing the conflict between individual suffering and collective responsibility.
Raymond Rambert, a journalist, initially seeks to escape the quarantined city but ultimately chooses to contribute to the fight against the plague, representing the journey from self-interest to communal solidarity. Father Paneloux, a Jesuit priest, offers a theological perspective, arguing that the plague is a punishment for sin, while engaging in a complex dialogue with Rieux about faith and science. Jean Tarrou, a former political activist, becomes a compassionate volunteer, documenting the social implications of the crisis before succumbing to the disease himself.
Other significant figures, such as Joseph Grand, a clerk struggling with personal insignificance, and M. Cottard, a man whose darker inclinations emerge amidst the chaos, further illustrate the varied human responses to catastrophe. Through these characters, Camus delves into themes of suffering, mortality, and the search for meaning in times of existential crisis, inviting readers to reflect on the nature of humanity in the face of adversity.
The Plague: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: Albert Camus
First published: La Peste, 1947 (English translation, 1948)
Genre: Novel
Locale: Oran, Algeria
Plot: Impressionistic realism
Time: The 1940's
Bernard Rieux (behr-NAHR ryew), a physician and surgeon in Oran, Algeria, where a plague is claiming as many as three hundred lives a day. Dr. Rieux, a thirty-five-year-old man of great patience, fortitude, and unselfishness, represents the medical profession during the long siege of disease and deaths that strikes rich and poor alike and from which there is no reprieve. The plague means failure to Rieux because he can find no cure or relief for the sufferers. His attitude is characterized by his regard for his fellow people and his inability to cope with injustice and compromise. Very much involved with humankind, he explains that he is able to continue working with the plague-stricken population only because he has found that abstraction is stronger than happiness. He is identified at the end of the book as the narrator of the story, and his account gives the pestilence the attributes of a character, the antagonist. Events of the plague are secondary to philosophies as he pictures the people's reactions, individually and collectively, to their plight. These run the range of emotions and rationality: escape, guilt, a spirit of lawlessness, pleasure, and resistance. During the plague, individual destinies become collective destinies because the plague and emotions are shared by all. Love and friendship fade because they ask something of the future, and the plague leaves only present moments. As the pestilence subsides, relieving the exile and deprivation, there is jubilation, followed by the stereotyped patterns of everyday living.
Madame Rieux, the doctor's wife, the victim of another ailment. Mme Rieux is sent away to a sanatorium before the town is quarantined. Her absence from Rieux points up his unselfishness in staying on in Oran.
Raymond Rambert (ray-MOHN rahm-BEHR), a journalist from Paris. Assigned to a routine story on Oran, he is caught in exile when the city is quarantined because of the plague. Rambert, wanting to return to his wife, resorts to various means in attempting to escape. A nonresident, alien to the plight of the people, he personifies those who feel no involvement with the problems of others. When escape from the city becomes a reality for him, Rambert declines his freedom and accepts Rieux's philosophy of common decency, which amounts merely to doing one's job. In this instance, Rambert's job, according to Rieux, is to fight the plague. The journalist becomes a volunteer on the sanitation teams.
Father Paneloux (pah-neh-LEW), a Jesuit priest who represents the ecclesiastical thinking of people caught in the crisis represented by the plague. Preaching on the plague, he compares the present situation with pestilences of the past and tells his parishioners that they have brought the plague upon themselves through their godlessness. Placing the scientific and the spiritual in balance, Paneloux and Rieux debate whether this man of God and this scientist can consort in contending with adversities. The two men are closer in their thinking than Rieux, a self-proclaimed atheist, and Paneloux, a heretic in some of his preaching, will concede. Paneloux is among those who succumb to the plague.
Jean Tarrou (zhahn tah-REW), an enigma to his associates among the volunteers in fighting the plague. Addicted to simple pleasures but no slave to them, Tarrou has no apparent means of income. Little is known of his background until he tells Rieux of his beginnings. The son of a prosecutor, he had been horrified by the thought of the criminals condemned because of his father. He himself has been a political agitator. Tarrou becomes a faithful helper to Rieux, and as a volunteer he records the social aspects of the plague. In telling of the plague, Rieux borrows from these records. After the worst of the pestilence has passed, Tarrou dies from the plague.
Joseph Grand (zhoh-SEHF grahn), a municipal clerk. Characterized by all the attributes of insignificance, Grand has spent twenty-two years in his job, to which he was appointed temporarily. He is unable to escape from this imprisonment because he cannot find words with which to protest. He announces early in his acquaintance with Rieux that he has a second job, which he describes as a “growth of personality.” The futility of this avocation, writing, is epitomized by Grand's continuing work on the first paragraph of a novel that he anticipates will be the perfect expression of love.
M. Cottard (koh-TAHR), a dealer in wines and liquors, treated by Rieux after an attempt at suicide. His undercover deals and unsettled life are sublimated or furthered by his keen delight in gangster movies. He survives the plague, only to go berserk during a shooting fray with the police.
Dr. Richard (ree-SHAHR), the chairman of the medical association in Oran. He is more interested in observing the code of the organization than in trying to reduce the number of deaths.
M. Othon (oh-TOHN), the police magistrate. His isolation after contracting the plague shows Rieux's impartiality in dealing with plague victims.
Jacques Othon (zhahk), the magistrate's son, on whom a new serum is tried. The lengthy description of young Othon's illness illustrates the suffering of the thousands who die of the plague.
Madame Rieux, the doctor's mother, who comes to keep house for her son during his wife's absence. She is an understanding woman who reminds Tarrou of his own childhood and elicits his philosophical discussion of a man's role in life.
Garcia (gahr-SEE-ah), Raoul (rah-EWL), Gonzales (gohnZAH-lehs), Marcel (mahr-SEHL), and Louis (lwee), the men involved in Rambert's contemplated escape from Oran. The intricacies of illegality are shown as Rambert is referred from one of these men to another. From Garcia, an accomplice of Cottard, to Marcel and Louis, guards at the city gate, each one must have his stipend, until finally the cost of escape becomes exorbitant.