So, since I'm apparently terrible at updating this blog, have the essay I wrote for English on The Plague by Albert Camus. I got 80% for it :D
In his Notebooks, Albert Camus gave the following explication of his novel The Plague:
The Plague may be read in three different ways. It is at the same time a tale about an epidemic; a symbol of Nazi occupation (and incidentally the prefiguration of any totalitarian regime, no matter where), and thirdly, the concrete illustration of a metaphysical problem, that of evil.
Write an essay in which you explore how these different levels of meaning are created within the novel: the literal, the allegorical and the metaphysical. Pay close attention to its formal qualities: language,
metaphors, methods of narration, figurative patterns, self-reflexiveness, textuality, plot and structure.
In doing this, you may wish to consider the following questions:
What are the possibilities but also the problems generated by the novel’s allegorical structure?
Does the work function as Camus intended it to?
Are there other ways in which it can be read?
That's question. Here's the essay:
Roland Barthes spoke, in his eponymous essay, of the death of the author. More than this he declared that in order for the reader to ever truly experience a text then the author must die, with regards to their work and the ways in which it can be read. Why, then, should Camus’s statement regarding the reading of The Plague be taken into consideration? What does it matter that he believes that his work may be read as a tale of plague, an allegory of autocracy, or the manifestation of a metaphysical problem? Being charitable, however, and accepting that Camus sat down to write The Plague for a reason, it follows then his words would carry some meaning; The Plague may certainly be read as the tale of an epidemic – it says so in the title. However, when we come to the matter of allegory, Camus’s assertions waver. Who, in the novel, represents the totalitarian regime? The plague, which falls upon Oran, or the inhabitants of the town, who impose strict rules on their home? And finally, what of the matter of metaphysics? Here, it seems, when dealing with the Problem of Evil, Camus is at his most comfortable, and most overt – tackling the problem head on, often disposing entirely of his characters and speaking directly to us, his readers.
It would be hard not to see the literal level of meaning in The Plague; the title itself announces it for all the world to see. La Peste, it says, telling the reader immediately, herein lies a tale of the plague, and so it goes on to tell that tale through the experiences of Doctor Rieux. From the appearance of the rats in the streets of Oran, to the first outbreak of fever, all leading up to the first fatality, Camus paints a picture of a town plagued by “bewildering portents” (11) – the transition from normal life to living under a “shadow of fear” (11) as the rats came out to die, to a seeming end to the troubles and finally to the outbreak of the plague proper, and the means taken by the townsfolk of Oran to deal with it clearly tell the literal story of an epidemic, just as Camus has said. This story of the plague, this tale of an epidemic and Doctor Rieux’s experiences thereof, form the plot of Camus’s work, what Stephen King refers to as “the writer’s jackhammer” (King, 259) and, even if Camus is wrong and there exists no way to read his work as an allegorical or metaphysical text, then, well, Camus still has the story itself, does he not? (322)
This is all very well and good, but a story is a story and there is not much to be said about that – it is very definitely present. Without it, there would be no driving narrative in the text. So, what, then of Camus’s claim that The Plague may be read as an allegory for Nazi occupation of France? Can the reader replace the plague, as an entity, with Nazis and the town of Oran with France itself, and still accurately represent the occupation? Camus seems to go to great lengths to inject this intention into his work; his painting of the plague as an entity that takes hold in the town is clearly designed to reflect the growth of Nazi power, and the actions of the town’s committee to represent the actions of the rest of Europe during the rise of Nazism. In the early days of fever in Oran, Rieux notes that “[i]t was hard to find…any indication that the authorities were facing the situation squarely” (Camus, 26), something that clearly contributes to the rapid spread of the epidemic and, indeed, this could well be intended to represent Prime Minister of England Neville Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement – negotiating with Hitler in order to promote goodwill which led to Hitler’s gaining Czechoslovakia and, thus, more power. There are clear parallels between Chamberlain and the Prefect of Oran: they both sought to “obviate any risk of an epidemic” (26) and felt sure that those under them would support them in their efforts. Similarly, they both held to their views of appeasement, of ‘wait-and-see’, until it was too late to effectively prevent the outbreak of their epidemics, literal and figurative.
It does not, however, take long for problems to start creeping in to our allegorical reading of The Plague. With the disease itself acting as our metaphorical Nazis, the flow of the allegory is broken when it is the committee of Oran who order the injection of poison gas into the sewers to kill the rats (26). Are we, then, intended to read the inhabitants of Oran as the Nazis and the plague as the French people? If the text is read in this way, it becomes harder to support the idea that it is an allegory for the occupation – it was not the people of Oran who occupied the land of the plague. Camus, however, remains quite adamant that this reading of The Plague makes sense. Indeed, he attempts to draw parallels throughout the novel, but this base confusion as to who textually is meant to represent what literally prevents the work from being pure allegory. Were the novel pure allegory, then we could happily say ‘plague equals Nazis’ and dust our hands off and tip our hats to Camus on our way out. This is not the case, though. Whereas in our real world from which Camus was writing it was the Nazi regime that was responsible for the deaths of millions and the construction of death camps and the burning of the bodies, in the world of Oran and the plague that Camus presents to us as readers, it is the leadership of Oran who enact the quarantine of the infected and the burning of the dead. The image often associated with the disparity between the Nazi regime and the common German is that of thick smoke spreading out from ‘sausage factories’ at Auschwitz or Bergen-Belsen, not knowing what is truly going on under those smoke-coughing spires. Camus deliberately invokes this image in his quest to draw parallels between the epidemic and the Nazis, speaking of “an oily, foul-smelling cloud of smoke [hanging] low upon the eastern districts of the town” (87). Again, though, there is confusion on the most basic level of his allegory. It was the townsfolk, not the plague, who built the crematoriums, and it is through a desire to eradicate the epidemic that the committee authorises these actions, not out of some twisted idea of purity. So, it seems, when we come to the allegorical reading of The Plague, Camus falls short in his assertions.
What about Camus’s final stated reading of his work – that of The Plague as a philosophical text that tackles the Problem of Evil? A metaphysical idea, the Problem of Evil calls out the idea of an omnipotent, benevolent deity on the basis that if such a being existed, why do bad things happen? Here, Camus seems to pick up the baton that he temporarily fumbled when he asserted that his novel could be read allegorically – as he was a philosopher, it makes sense that he would be most comfortable when dealing with ideas of philosophy. His characters directly confront this issue, calling direct attention to it and grappling with it in a very obvious manner; for several pages, Camus relates the sermons and illness of Father Paneloux (107-113) and Rieux’s struggle to understand the faith that the priest holds in God, for the doctor rejects any “scheme of things in which children are put to torture” (106), having seen exactly this during the plague’s reign over Oran – innocent children falling ill and dying of a terrible disease, and how can there be a kindly, loving God if such a thing can be allowed to happen? This disillusionment and loss of faith by the doctor is foreshadowed at the beginning of the novel, when Rieux is asked if there is any hope for Michel, to which he replies “‘[h]e’s dead’” (11). Clearly, then, Camus is correct and his novel may be read as a metaphysical text, tackling the Problem of Evil.
So it seems as though Camus scores two out of three when it comes to his asserted readings of The Plague. He clearly and succinctly constructs a world in which we see the effects of the plague on the town of Oran – the literal – but also tackles the metaphysical implications thereof – the Problem of Evil. However, if one accepts Barthes’s view that the author must die in order for the reader to live, it is dangerous to place too much stock in Camus’s words, for they may lead us as readers astray and prevent us from taking from the text some new way of reading it. However, if we accept that Camus may have something useful to us when considering his novel, then he achieved some of what he claims to have.
Copyright Conor Engelbrecht 2014
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