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1. Albert Camus: The Plague - Summary and Commentary
from an Existentialist and Humanist Point of View
Bubonic plague is a disease caused by the bacterium, Yersinia pestis. Modern antibiotics
are effective in treating it. Humans initially get plague after being bitten by a rodent flea
that is carrying the plague bacterium, after which it can spread, if unchecked, through
whole populations. Outbreaks of plague in Europe killed millions during the Middle Ages.
Without prompt treatment, the disease causes serious illness or death.
Camus wrote his novel The Plague originally in 1942, but it was not published in its final
form until 1947. It was initially suggested that the novel was an allegory of the Nazi
invasion of France, and the Resistance groups that opposed it, with which Camus was
closely involved. That may be partly true, but it’s roots are much deeper. As this analysis
attempts to show, it is both an existentialist and humanist novel of the front rank.
Summary of the Plot
Part I
The novel is set in Oran, a coastal town in Algeria. No date is given, but we can assume it
is around 1940. Rats begin to die in the streets. At first this goes unnoticed, and then
becomes a nuisance. Soon, the townspeople start to panic. The city authorities collect and
burn the rats, but to no avail. The rats continue to die.
The concierge in the apartment building where Dr. Bernard Rieux lives is one of the first to
report the dying rats and also one of the first to catch a fever and die. Dr. Rieux and Dr.
Castel, a colleague, conclude that there may be an epidemic of plague in Oran. Doctors on
the towns medical committee and town authorities dismiss the theory. But when there are
more deaths, it becomes clear that Rieux and Castel are right. Coincidentally, Rieux's wife
has been sent elsewhere to a sanatorium as she has an unrelated illness.
The town Prefect, supported by the local doctors and his advisors, is unable to recognise
the seriousness of the situation. Not wishing to create panic, the the authorities delay
taking action beyond putting up notices telling people to take precautions. They try to
sound optimistic, and the result is that little gets done. The number of deaths increases
rapidly, and at last more drastic measures are taken. These include quarantining of houses
and regulations for the handling of corpses and for burials. Thanks to action by Dr Castel,
a supply of plague serum is eventually acquired but there is barely enough for the cases
that already exist. A declaration is made that there is an epidemic of bubonic plague in
Oran.
Part II
The town gates are barred, travel in and out of the town is forbidden. Telephones can be
used only in emergencies and for urgent calls. Telegrams are the only means of
communication. Gloom and depression set in amongst the citizenry.
Raymond Rambert, a visiting journalist with no connection to the town, has wife living in
Paris. He tries hard to get the city administration to give him permission to leave, but,

2. meeting with a wall of bureaucracy, he turns to the criminal element in the town who find
two sentries prepared to let him out of the city in return for money.
Father Paneloux, a Jesuit priest, preaches a sermon telling his congregation that the
plague is God’s punishment for their past laxity and evil behaviour. His oratory is
convincing for many, and the sermon is a notable feature in the earlier part of the novel.
Cottard, is a quiet, dubious figure, with no certain means of support although he says he is
a wine salesman. He becomes so depressed he attempts suicide, though it is not the
plague which causes his depression.
Jean Tarrou is staying in the town. He is intelligent and resourceful, and volunteers to set
up sanitary squads to clear up corpses and dispose of them.
Joseph Grand, is an unambitious clerk employed by the town authorities, who lives in the
same apartment block as a Cottard, and rescues him from his suicide attempt. He helps
Tarrou and Rieux as a volunteer, keeping records.
Rambert tells Tarrou about his escape plan, and his efforts to get out by either legal or
illegal means.
Part III
The situation gets worse as summer progresses. The town is put under curfew as people
try to escape, and there are outbreaks of public disorder. The citizens become increasingly
desperate as the death toll increases and funerals become speedy, cursory affairs with
little regard for the feeling of the families and mourners. The morale and mental health of
the townspeople start to deteriorate.
Part IV
Things do not improve as the autumn comes, and Rieux has bad news of his wife, who is
getting worse, but he ploughs on with his work. He finds he is becoming hardened to the
suffering of the citizens, as he takes soldiers with him to escort those infected into
quarantine. The only person who is in good spirits is Cottard, who feels in danger, as do
others, but that seems make him feel equal to them, something he did not feel in ordinary
life. He also starts a flourishing black market. He and Tarrou go to the opera, and become
friendly, but the performance is spoiled for the audience by one of the principals collapsing
on the stage, dying from the plague. Rambert finally gets arrangements made to escape.
But at the last minute he changes his mind, and stays to help Tarrou with his sanitary
squads. As autumn wears on, the small son of the town magistrate dies from the plague
after a long and horrific struggle. He is watched over by Rieux,, who can do nothing to
save him except administer his colleague’s serum, to no avail. Tarrou and Paneloux also
watch in horror.
Paneloux, while not necessarily moving from his previous position of seeing the plague as
God’s judgment, has joined the volunteers, so taking a more humanist view. He gives
another sermon in which he tells the congregation that we must accept God’s judgment as
wise if inexplicable to mere mortals. He does not change his previous position but
introduces a more charitable note, telling people that they should do everything possible to
fight the plague. Very soon, Paneloux himself becomes ill. His symptoms are not those

3. regularly seen in a case of the plague, but he nonetheless dies. Rieux records his death as
a doubtful case.
Tarrou tells Rieux the story of his life and, to take their minds off the epidemic, the two men
go swimming together in the sea. Grand catches the plague and instructs Rieux to burn all
his papers. However, he makes an unexpected recovery as deaths from the plague start to
decline.
Part V.
In the New Year the plague declines further, and the citizens’ mood lightens, apart from
Cottard. His black market activities and earlier attempted suicide make him fearful of
action by the authorities. Two men from the Prefecture come round to see him, but he runs
away. The gates open and visitors and loved ones from outside are allowed in, including
Rambert’s partner. Cottard loses control and starts shooting into the street. He is arrested,
and brutally treated by the arresting officer. Grand takes up writing his novel again. Right
at the end of the epidemic, Tarrou catches the plague and dies after a long fight. Rieux
also hears that his wife has died.
Rieux reveals to readers that he is the narrator. He reflects on the epidemic and declares
he wrote the chronicle "to simply say what we learn in the midst of plagues : there are
more things to admire in men than to despise". He also predicts that the plague has the
potential to return one day.
Background: The Myth of Sisyphus and The Rebel.
For an informed analysis of The Plague, we need to look at some background to Camus’
philosophy in two other essays, one published before The Plague and one after.
The Myth of Sisyphus
The Myth of Sisyphus (1942) is about the concept of absurdity. Camus reasons that life
has no meaning, and he takes as a metaphor the ancient Greek tale of Sisyphus, who
captures Death and puts him in chains, freeing humanity from a finitude which motivates it
to fill life with activity which will in the end be forgotten and futile. Once Death is freed and
restored to his former position, the gods condemn Sisyphus to spend his time rolling a
stone up a hill only to see it roll down again, so he has to repeat the labour ad infinitum. He
has no option but to accept the situation. Death is real; life is absurd.
The absurdity of life lies not so much in the world as in our ontological need to try to make
sense of it. Camus accuses philosophers who have tried to set up systems to explain the
world as committing “philosophical suicide”. Nothing - not God (religious philosophy) or
Platonic forms - can deliver us from this absurdity. He is severe in his judgement:
Dostoevsky, who finds a ray of hope in such novels as the Brothers Karamazov, and even
Kafka, acknowledged by Camus as a master of the absurd, incur criticism because of their
tendency to extract hope from the most absurd situations.
The modern form of the Myth of Sisyphus is the drudgery of the office and the building site.
To escape, man reacts by turning to revolt, attempts at freedom and to passion.The absurd
man thinks he is in love, but love is short lived. Or maybe he pretends he has a persona,
which is ephemeral. Or perhaps a conqueror, but such action does not bring lasting
rewards. We shall see absurdity illustrated in The Plague.

4. The Rebel
The Rebel, written in 1951, is another essay this time examining the European experience
of rebellion and revolution. In some ways it follows on from the Myth of Sisyphus,
published nine years earlier, and explains the motivations of some of the characters in The
Plague.
Man, faced with injustice, rebels. Behind rebellion, according to Camus, is a desire for
comprehension in the midst of the meaningless absurdity of life. When a movement
towards rebellion, which is ontological, turns into revolution and the overthrow of existing
Governments and systems, there are dangers that in seeking perfection further restrictions
are put in place, and the situation ends up no better than before and usually much worse.
There is a tendency for rebels to forget the ontological absurdity of life in their quest for a
better world, and justification of their cause.
Camus sees rebellion as natural but revolution as self-defeating. Rebellion leading to
cultural reformation is to be applauded, but rebellion leading to revolution is not. Heroic
defiance in the face of oppression is a moral activity; murder and terrorism as a result of
an ideological utopia is not.
Commentary
Armed with this background, we can start our analysis.
The Plague is an existentialist novel, but not wholly so. Perhaps it is true to say that it is
primarily a work of existentialism, but with added humanism and sympathy for suffering
and injustice which is typical of Camus.
According to Camus then, life is absurd. We are here. So is “why are we here?” a none
question? There is no obvious ‘why’ to answer. We just are. Having found ourselves here,
we must accept the hazards and enjoy the rewards of simply being. But the origin of these
hazards and rewards are contingent. They arise at random. They are as absurd as our
being here at all.
This absurdity raises a number of problems. What is the role of God, of religion? Does it
solve our problems of being? What is the role of planning, government and authority? Can
any of them improve our lives? Or technology and social organisation, markets, capitalism,
and any other social activities and structures. What influence do they have on the
individual being, and to what extent can that being be in control of them?
When the plague strikes the happy, functional, commercial port city of Oran, it comes out
of the blue. In that respect, it is part of the absurdity of being. It cannot be controlled, and it
was not planned for. What action can an individual caught up in the plague take?
Existentialism is primarily a philosophy of being. Sartre emphasises that a being is initially
free to take action; Kant earlier said that free will is a priori, ontologically built into what it is
to be. Such freedom implies choice, and choice leads inevitably to action - inevitably
because even deciding to do nothing is an alternative choice. This sequence - freedom,
choice, action - is well established in the French existential literature of the time, as

5. explained by Pellauer and Dauenhauer, (2002, revised 2016) writing of Paul Ricoeur, a
contemporary of Camus:
“Ricoeur argues that the voluntary and involuntary dimensions of human existence are
complementary. This can be seen through a phenomenological description of the three
structures that constitute the voluntary: deciding, choosing and moving to action, and our
necessary consent to the involuntary as that which is acted upon through our embodiment,
the organ of our action. There is no seamless harmony between these dimensions of what
is finally only a finite freedom.”
The Characters
In The Plague, Camus investigates that sequence of the decision to act through a group of
men caught up in the plague who have before them a choice of what action to take.
We need to consider them separately and in more detail than in the summary:
Bernard Rieux. Rieux is a local doctor who recognises the plague early on, and tries to
get the local authority to to take action to limit its the spread. He is part of the
establishment, but a man motivated to act. He is not a rebel, or a virtue signaller. He
doesn’t believe in God and he has no moral purpose beyond his professional duty to help
the sick. That is his motivation. Speaking to Rambert:
“ "What do you mean by 'common decency'?" Rambert's tone was grave.
"I don't know what it means for other people. But in my case I know that it consists in
doing my job."”
Jean Tarrou. Tarrou’s presence in the town is unexplained. He appears to have his own
means; he does no specific work. Tarrou is a complex character. His father was an
eminent prosecuting attorney and in his youth Tarrou was invited to watch him prosecute in
a murder case. Tarrou’s father calls for the death penalty on a poor, owl like creature who
had killed a man. Later in life, Tarrou was invited to watch a firing squad, an experience he
graphically describes to Rieux:
“ “Have you ever seen a man shot by a firing-squad? No, of course not; the spectators are
hand-picked and it's like a private party, you need an invitation. The result is that you've
gleaned your ideas about it from books and pictures. A post, a blindfolded man, some
soldiers in the offing. But the real thing isn't a bit like that. Do you know that the firing-
squad stands only a yard and a half from the condemned man? Do you know that if the
victim took two steps forward his chest would touch the rifles? Do you know that, at this
short range, the soldiers concentrate their fire on the region of the heart and their big
bullets make a hole into which you could thrust your fist? No, you didn't know all that;
those are things that are never spoken of...personally I've never been able to sleep well
since then. The bad taste remained in my mouth and I've kept lingering on the details,
brooding over them.”
As a result of these experiences, Tarrou wants to save life. He feels pity for the more
unfortunate of his fellow men, and he wants to take action to save them. He does not
believe in God, and he wants to be an atheist saint.

6. He has a second motivator, not often noted in commentaries: he wants to comprehend, to
discover.
“ Suddenly Rieux gave a short laugh, and there was much friendliness in it.
"Out with it, Tarrou! What on earth prompted you to take a hand in this?" "I don't know. My
code of morals, perhaps."
"Your code of morals? What code?" "Comprehension.” ”
He also seeks peace through his good works:
“ “That's why I decided to take, in every predicament, the victims' side, so as to reduce the
damage done. Among them I can at least try to discover how one attains to the third
category; in other words, to peace." ”
In practical matters, there is no disunity between Rieux, the public servant, and Tarrou, the
rebel. The narrator writes:
“Many fledgling moralists in those days were going about our town proclaiming there was
nothing to be done about it and we should bow to the inevitable. And Tarrou, Rieux, and
their friends might give one answer or another, but its conclusion was always the same,
their certitude that a fight must be put up, in this way or that, and there must be no
bowing down.”
Towards the end of the novel, Rieux reflects:
“But what had he, Rieux, won? No more than the experience of having known plague and
remembering it, of having known friendship and remembering it, of knowing affection and
being destined one day to remember it. So all a man could win in the conflict between
plague and life was knowledge and memories. But Tarrou, perhaps, would have called
that winning the match.”
Philosophy of Rieux and Tarrou. It is worth pausing here to discuss some humanist and
existentialist issues attaching to these two characters.
Rieux expects no reward, and (though not content with the procrastination of his municipal
employers) he sees his duty as relieving suffering where he can. He does not see himself
as anything other than a professional opposing an irresistible force. He knows the force
cannot be defeated, only it’s effects on its victims alleviated in a small way. He has no
explanation or view of the plague beyond a recognition of its contingency. So Rieux comes
across as the Sisyphian labourer. He does not question, he works. He accepts the hand he
has been dealt and gets on with doing what he can.
While Tarrou has a view similar in many respects, he is more of a rebel with a cause. He
feels existential guilt, not for the plague, but for the way the fight has to be conducted. He
wants to do his own thing, to make an original contribution though like Rieux he is without
hope of anything like a victory. His fear is of not doing enough - the same need to avoid
guilt which motivates of supporters of causes from Climate Change to Black Lives Matter
and beyond.

7. Existential guilt is a broad topic and too wide to discuss adequately here.
According to Hoffman (2017):
“Existential guilt can be thought of as referring to when one lives inauthentically, or fails to
seek out achieving one’s potential. However, it can also be understood as something
connected deeply to human nature (i.e. something ontological) or who one is as a
person...one cannot escape being existentially guilty.”
Hofmann considers examples of guilt for others’ problems or privations because one is
privileged, but concludes:
“One should not be too harsh on oneself about this, what does this mean? It seems the
easiest choice would be to become cynical, apathetic, or both. Yet, from an existential
perspective, this is seen as a call to live more responsibility in the face of one’s guilt...it is
what frees one to respond authentically and responsibly to the inevitability of failure in
one’s limited, finite state.”
Another difference between Rieux and Tarrou is their view of the collective political action.
Rieux is part of the municipal government of Oran, and the local medical support structure.
He works through it. Initially, he tries to drive the prefecture and the local Medical
Association to more urgent action, but without much success. Later he works with a
colleague to produce a serum to treat the disease. He is a dedicated public servant.
Tarrou works on his own initiative to set up sanitary teams. He is of the mindset that
favours political pressure by collective action. He sees what he is doing as defiance
against oppression in the same way as he sees campaigning against the death sentence
for murder. He seeks comprehension (as he himself puts it) of the absurd or contingent
state of the world. Thus Tarrou, unlike Rieux, believes in trying to change the world beyond
simply helping to heal. Describing his moral stance to Rieux, Tarrou says:
““That's why I say there are pestilences and there are victims; no more than that. If, by
making that statement, I, too, become a carrier of the plague-germ, at least I don't do it
wilfully. I try, in short, to be an innocent murderer. You see, I've no great ambitions. I grant
we should add a third category: that of the true healers. But it's a fact one doesn't come
across many of them, and anyhow it must be a hard vocation. That's why I decided to take,
in every predicament, the victims' side, so as to reduce the damage done. Among them I
can at least try to discover how one attains to the third category; in other words, to
peace.””
The Camus of The Rebel would see Tarrou’s thinking as, at best, confused. Tarrou only a
partial realisation of the absurdity of the world. While such realisation does not stop us
opposing oppression and injustice, it does place limits on the ambition for wholesale
reform by revolution, which Camus saw as vainly seeking the end of history. Camus
admired rebellion, but not revolution. His disagreements with Sartre arose because of
Sartre’s conversion to the communist ideology. A second objection, which Camus shares
with Simone Weil, is that in order to keep the revolution going, authorities historically have
had always had to impose subsequent restrictions and enslavement of the people in the
name of liberation. Examples include the French Revolution and its succeeding terroir, and
the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the purges which followed.

8. The tendency to rebellion in the mind of Tarrou is brought about by the events earlier in his
life, which are contingent and to that extent as absurd as is the plague he is currently
helping to fight. This mindset could be seen as inauthentic, perhaps the seeds of
revolution. Symbolically as well as actually, it transpires that the plague is in Tarrou, and it
eventually kills him. As Rossi says:
“In a sense the infection destroying Tarrou is the moral anguish whose germs have
entered him when he first became aware of his guilt. This is a rare form of evil in men.
Tarrou is one of the last victims of the plague, and in him it exhibits symptoms different
from those usually encountered by Rieux.”
Raymond Rambert. Rambert is a visitor to Oran, caught up in the plague. He longs to join
his partner in Paris. His longing is such that he tries every means possible to escape from
the city. Finding himself faced with a wall of bureaucracy and procrastination by the
authorities, he make criminal contacts, and eventually bribes two of the guards to let him
escape. His first attempt fails, but before another can be set up, Rambert changes his
mind, and decides that his duty should come before his desire, and that he should stay
and help Tarrou in the sanitary squads. All this in spite of his earlier protestations to Rieux
about the superiority of love to all other motivation:
“ “Man is an idea, and a precious small idea, once he turns his back on love. And that's my
point; we, mankind, have lost the capacity for love. We must face that fact, doctor. Let's
wait to acquire that capacity or, if really it's beyond us, wait for the deliverance that will
come to each of us anyway, without his playing the hero. Personally, I look no farther."”
The question is, why does Rambert change his mind, in spite of these earlier protestations
and when all of the elaborate preparations have been made? The short answer is that he
realises the true nature of love, which is about courage and giving and not about
obsession.
It is difficult to find further development of this idea elsewhere in Camus’ writing. This is
confirmed by Lombardi (2020):
“Albert Camus wrote in his journals that if he ‘had to write a book on morality, it would have
a hundred pages and ninety-nine would be blank’. On the last page he said he would write,
‘I recognise only one duty, and that is to love’. But Camus didn’t tell us (at least not
directly) what love is, or how to understand our duty to it.”
Lombardi also points out that Camus’ attitude to life was a Sicyphian resistance to its
absurdities combined with a need for passion – which extends to love. The great crime is
the failure to act. But to act in what way? There is no moral direction beyond the Kantian
notion of duty. It was finally duty, rather than passion, and the duty of action against the
plague rather than escape from the city and return to his partner that persuades Rambert.
A parallel in existentialist literature may be in Sartre in his lecture, Existentialism and
Humanism, later published in book form. He relates how one of his students asked to see
him during the war to discuss a moral decision. The student had to choose between
leaving his mother, who needed his care, and joining the Free French in Britain to conduct
a struggle against the invader, possibly never returning. Sartre is unable to give him
unequivocal advice. He argues the case at length, looking at the Christian doctrine of
charity, and the Kantian imperative of duty. But he comes to no conclusion. The student is
free, he must make his own choice. In some ways the problem related by Sartre is more

9. difficult than Rambert’s, who is mainly motivated by a desire for his partner who is safe in
Paris, and would frankly but better off without the possibility of infection from the fleeing
Rambert. But he chooses duty over desire.
“You are free therefore choose - that is to say, invent. No rule of general morality can show
you what you ought to do: no signs are vouchsafed in this world.”
(Sartre, 1946, page 43.)
Father Paneloux. Paneloux, a local Jesuit priest, at first does not help to alleviate the
plague, but instead preaches a sermon in which he attributes the outbreak to God’s
judgment on the town and its citizens for their laxity and selfishness. They have hardened
their hearts against the Christian doctrine. Later, after attending the death of a child, he
starts to help with the alleviation efforts, and preaches another sermon, saying that the
plague and the death of innocent children in particular by a God who loves us cannot be
explained, but must be accepted:
“ “My brothers", the preacher's tone showed he was nearing the conclusion of his sermon,
"the love of God is a hard love. It demands total self-surrender, disdain of our human
personality. And yet it alone can reconcile us to suffering and the deaths of children, it
alone can justify them, since we cannot understand them, and we can only make God's
will ours.” ”
The death of the innocent is a trial of our faith. Soon after, he catches an infection and
dies.
His position is absurdist of a kind, though still nonetheless cleaving to his religious position
and still therefore afflicted with a form of existential guilt. When he becomes ill, his
symptoms are not typical of the plague, and Rieux considers him a doubtful case. Does he
symbolically die because the plague is in him in that he cannot fully accept the absurdity of
the world, and this religion is another form of rebellion against it? Or maybe not? He is
atypical.
Religious commentators are generally more sympathetic to Camus, who they regard as an
agnostic, than to the determinedly atheist Sartre. Hanna (1956), calls him “today’s most
articulate non-Christian thinker”, and opines that he is “not anti-Christian but non-
Christian”. Hanna also points out that the Christian faith is sustained on two levels, one by
the Hellenic notion of a mediating God who creates a beautiful world, and the Judaic
notion of a historic God who guides the world. Paneloux, in his first sermon proclaims that
God is punishing the citizenry for its shortcomings and misuse of the world. Subsequently,
after witnessing the agonising death of a child, he relents and proclaims that we cannot
know the workings of this mediating God, but that intervention to help the suffering is
nonetheless not only permitted by the God who guides the world, but is also desirable.
Rieux, like Camus, does not accept the need to conceive of a mediating God who allows
such suffering. But to Paneloux, the idea of a God is as ontological as Tarrou’s aim for a
better world. Paneloux‘s intellectual infection is subtly different, although he looks for
utopia of a sort either in this world or an afterlife. Something like a plague is in him though
not the same as the plague infecting Tarrou.
Joseph Grand. Grand is perhaps the strangest among the central characters of the
plague. He has had no promotion at work, though he works hard; he is trying to write a
novel, but he repeatedly rewrites the same sentence, which he can never craft to his
satisfaction; his continual efforts to teach himself Latin make little progress. His personal

10. qualities are well suited to those of a volunteer helper, and he settles to his duties without
complaint, working in Rieux and Tarrou as the keeper of statistics. Rieux says he is "the
true embodiment of the quiet courage that inspired the sanitary groups." A modest man
doing a modest but useful and repetitive job - a Sisyphean labourer.
He catches the plague near the end of the epidemic, but recovers. It is difficult to interpret
the symbolism of this. One possible explanation is that the spirit of rebellion in Grand is so
much reduced that his labours, so diligently executed, are often futile, and he puts up no
resistance. His life would have been better for him if he showed more passion for action.
He has a role, which he acts out, which is a persona, and inauthentic for that reason. But
there is hope for him: on recovery he starts his novel again, and also contacts his wife,
who left him some years earlier due to his immovable lack of ambition, overwork and their
poverty.
Cottard. Cottard lives in the same apartment block as Grand, who early in the novel calls
Rieux because Cottard has attempted suicide. He is a misfit, who does not cope with other
people well. As the epidemic develops, he thrives. He becomes more sociable, and
operates in the black market. When everyone else lives in fear, he feels more equal to
them. He is no longer an outsider. Tarrou says of him:
“ “In short, this epidemic has done him proud. Of a lonely man who hated loneliness it has
made an accomplice. Yes, 'accomplice' is the word that fits, and doesn't he relish his
complicity! He is happily at one with all around him, with their superstitions, their
groundless panics, the susceptibilities of people whose nerves are always on the
stretch...since he, personally, has learned what it is to live in a state of constant fear, he
finds it normal that others should come to know this state.” ”
In the end, when the plague is over, he loses control when visited by the authorities who
are seeking to investigate him. He gets a gun and start shooting into the street. He is
afraid of being punished for some of his past crimes and misdemeanours, including his
attempted suicide. He is arrested, and hit in the face and kicked on the ground by the
arresting officer.
Cottard is a nihilist. He gives up on life, and society, not the plague, takes its vengeance
on him through his refusal to join it. For the most part, he hides from the plague and even
makes himself useful as a supplier of goods with his black market and dubious activities.
But he knows that when it ends those former customers and others who were too
preoccupied to bother about him, notably the police, will turn against him as before. He is
right. There is little sympathy for Cottard by a society which lacks understanding. Neither
Grand or Rieux protest when he is pushed and kicked by the policeman. Rieux reflects on
this later:
“...Rieux was thinking of Cottard, and the dull thud of fists belabouring the wretched man's
face haunted him...Perhaps it was more painful to think of a guilty man than of a dead
man.”
Who is the more guilty? Cottard for using to the plague for crime, or the gratuitously violent
policemen, or the inactive, consenting Rieux?
This issue in considered again below as an ethical aspect of The Plague.

11. The Asthma Patient. Although a minor character in the action, the asthma patient is the
complete Sisyphean. He is too old and ill to do anything but keep out of the way, which is
helpful if only because it prevents the spread of infection. He passes the time with a
monotonous labour of moving peas from one jar to another to pass the time. But he is his
own man not an inauthentic creation of his imagination - so he survives. He is the
complete absurdist. He says:
“ “It was plague. We've had the plague here.' You'd almost think they expected to be given
medals for it. But what does that mean, 'plague'? Just life, no more than that." ”
Ambiguous Ethical and Moral Aspects
In order to understand The Plague further I shall consider the concept of existential
conversion as set out in Simone De Beauvoir’s essay, The Ethics of Ambiguity.
Existentialist conversion, according to De Beauvoir, means that we can embrace freedom
of action but at the same time have to live with our facticity. We may take up projects
through spontaneous choice, but limits to our freedom to act are nonetheless set both
externally in the world and internally because of our background, inherited characteristics,
and present circumstances. Freedom therefore consists in the projects of the moment,
freely chosen, and not grounded in religion or ideology.
De Beauvoir’s themes in The Ethics of Ambiguity are (see Holveck, 1999):
- There are no absolute values. De Beauvoir argues against the abstract rules of duty
enunciated by Kant in the categorical imperative. Existentialist conversion means that
humans to learn humanist values through experience.
- The concrete exercise of freedom in action can be a joyful experience. Existentialist
conversion powers us forward with a sense of increasing freedom.
- Existentialist conversion also reveals possibilities for free action, at the same time it also
reveals others who are similarly grounded. Development of freedom can entail projects
with others who have similar aims.
- My free choice to act is authentic when I accept full responsibility for my actions,
because responsibility manifests my freedom as well as the freedom of others. So if I
believe in what I am doing and involve others I move forward in an authentic way, not
acting a part or following the crowd.
- My freedom can also be in conflict with the freedom of others; even violence is always a
possibility. There may be necessary casualties. De Beauvoir’s point is not a Marxist
advocation of revolution; simply that collateral damage may ensue and throw up ethical
ambiguities.
This gives us a useful lens through which to reconsider some of the main characters
again:
Rieux, before the plague started and not because of it, sent his wife away to a sanatorium.
His love for her shines through the novel, so when at the end she dies from her illness it is
a poor reward for (or, more precisely, an absurd event in the life of) the worthy, dedicated
doctor. But he has acted with her agreement and the action seemed for the best. Things
turned out against them, and they can have no real cause for complaint about a judgment
call which was freely and co-operatively taken.
A second quite different instantiation concerns Rieux’s love for his values and his view of
his duty in the changed circumstances of the plague. When families refused to split up and

12. go into quarantine, Rieux has to take soldiers to enter their houses and take them against
their will:
“Before the plague he was welcomed as a saviour. He was going to make them right with a
couple of pills or an injection, and people took him by the arm on his way to the sickroom.
Flattering, but dangerous. Now, on the contrary, he came accompanied by soldiers, and
they had to hammer on the door with rifle-butts before the family would open it.”
Rieux accepts this as a necessary part of the resistance that has to be put up. As De
Beauvoir indicates, action involves others, and there may be collateral damage. So does
Rieux acts ethically?
I have referred above to Rieux ignoring the violent and unsympathetic treatment of
Cottard, at one time seen by Rieux and the inert Grand as a social misfit, attempting
suicide and in need of help. Is this a case of moral ambiguity or plain hypocrisy? When
Cottard is arrested, he has just endangered life by shooting into the street. Grand is
unassertive, and unlikely to move against the police. Rieux, though, a public figure, could
have objected. The fact that he didn’t troubled his conscience later.
“Perhaps it was more painful to think of a guilty man than of a dead man.”
Sometimes actions depend on background and circumstances, and, in Rieux’s case a
facticity which makes him respect order and a degree of formality. This might be a partial
explanation, but it does not necessarily constitute an excuse. (See also Sterling, 1986).
Tarrou, as discussed above, is innovative, and an independent actor. His actions have
consequences which could extend well beyond his control, and they are charitable and
laudable. But his quest is to try to achieve inner peace and comprehension. Is there
therefore more than a hint of inauthenticity?
Rambert learns about the nature of desire as opposed to real charity as the novel
develops. The notion that he turns from his own self love, which he mistakes for love of his
wife is not the whole story. He works out a humanist solution for himself, and he finds the
shared experience of this expression of freedom a joyful experience.
In spite of the difficulties of their tasks, many of the main characters find roles freely for
themselves in fighting the plague, and achieve satisfaction and sometimes joy in what they
do. Rieux, Rambert, Grand, and, until ordinary life returns to persecute him, Cottard are in
this category. The anguish of Tarrou and Father Paneloux may be related to their
reluctance to accept the absurdity of the plague, and to try to explain both it and the
reasons for their actions in generic, conventional moral terms.
Concluding Remarks
The Plague is one of the great existentialist novels. Written with the pace of a thriller, it
ranks alongside The Bothers Karamazov, which Camus criticises in The Myth of Sisyphus
because it seeks hope in the midst of absurdity.
But the Camus of The Plague shows more humanity than the Camus of The Myth of
Sisyphus. He has ideas in it about how to live. His absurdist hero Rieux is ashamed of

13. standing by when Cottard is beaten up by the police, for example. Rambert’s decision to
stay and help and not to join his wife is another ethical dilemma to which, unlike Sartre
advising his student, Camus offers if not a solution then a description of a credible
emotional transformation on Rambert’s part. The tendency to rebel and the existentialist
guilt in Tarrou and Paneloux are brilliantly handled.
The alternative interpretations of The Plague are set out by Marina Warner (Warner 2003)
who has come to take a primarily humanist interpretation of the novel, down playing the
existentialist view of her younger self.
“I read La Peste (The Plague) and brought away comforting corroboration of my deeply
held opinion that, yes, life was a plague, and its victims were condemned to an endless
cycle of futile revolt.”
She believes on re-reading, that:
“The Plague is about courage, about engagement, about paltriness and generosity, about
small heroism and large cowardice, and about all kinds of profoundly humanist problems,
such as love and goodness, happiness and mutual connection.”
She talks about the Nazi occupation of France, about terrorism, and “an urgent allegory of
war”. But also about existentialism:
“Misanthropy and pessimism (those aspects that gave me such satisfaction 40 years ago)
glint through the fabric of the novel, but they signal a call to vigilance rather than
defeat...The Plague doesn't give permission to despair but works out the complex hope
offered by resistance and the urgency of understanding the long, deep reach of war's
corrupting power.”
Those are inspiring sentiments, and they reflect well on Camus the man as well as Camus
the writer. The Plague is a brilliant novel which effectively straddles the existentialist views
of the time, and a moralist and humanist view of people under stress.
Postscript
This article has been written in lockdown during the outbreak of Covid-19 in the UK. There
are some interesting coincidences with incidents in Camus’ novel.
The often Sisyphean labours of health service and other front line workers, for example.
Their refusal to give in in spite of those who might say the cause was hopeless reflects the
attitude of Tarrou and Rieux:
“...Tarrou, Rieux, and their friends might give one answer or another, but its conclusion
was always the same, their certitude that a fight must be put up, in this way or that, and
there must be no bowing down.”
In the UK, many of those not involved on the front line tried to show their appreciation and
encouragement of those who were by applauding on streets on Thursday nights, for
example. The media also broadcast their support, and there were highly public efforts to
raise money for health service charities. In the same way, people outside Oran gave their
support and encouragement, somewhat to Rieux’s irritation:

14. “Sometimes at midnight, in the great silence of the sleep-bound town, the doctor turned on
his radio before going to bed for the few hours' sleep he allowed himself. And from the
ends of the earth, across thousands of miles of land and sea, kindly, well-meaning
speakers tried to voice their fellow-feeling, and indeed did so, but at the same time proved
the utter incapacity of every man truly to share in suffering that he cannot see. "Oran!
Oran!" In vain the call rang over oceans, in vain Rieux listened hopefully..."Oran, we're with
you!" they called emotionally. But not, the doctor told himself, to love or to die together?
"and that's the only way. They're too remote."”
Camus also describes the procrastination and confusion of the authorities before taking
action. For example, early on, Rieux tries to convince Dr Richard, the chairman of the
health authority, of the seriousness of the situation:
“Next day, by dint of a persistence that many thought ill-advised, Rieux persuaded the
authorities to convene a health committee at the Prefect's office.
"People in town are getting nervous, that's a fact," Dr. Richard admitted. "And of course all
sorts of wild rumours are going round. The Prefect said to me, 'Take prompt action if you
like, but don't attract attention.' He personally is convinced that it's a false alarm."”
There has also been a debate about the effectiveness of face masks for Covid-19. In The
Plague, Tarrou has a conversation with Rambert:
“(H)e took from a steriliser two masks of cotton-wool enclosed in muslin, handed one to
Rambert, and told him to put it on. The journalist asked if it was really any use. Tarrou said
no, but it inspired confidence in others.”
The plague in the novel comes to a definite end. That ending is not yet in sight for
Covid-19, and it may not be the apparently definite event depicted by Camus. Even here,
though, Rieux is aware that absurdity cannot be foreseen. The closing paragraph of The
Plague sounds a warning:
“And, indeed, as he listened to the cries of joy rising from the town, Rieux remembered
that such joy is always imperilled. He knew what those jubilant crowds did not know but
could have learned from books: that the plague...never dies or disappears for good; that it
can lie dormant for years and years in furniture and linen chests; that it bides its time in
bedrooms, cellars, trunks, and bookshelves; and that perhaps the day would come when,
for the bane and the enlightening of men, it would rouse up its rats again and send them
forth to die in a happy city.”
The plague had retreated, but was not eradicated.
References and Further Reading
Camus:
The Plague, The Myth of Sisyphus, and The Rebel are all published in English by Penguin
Books and others.
There are also various PDF copies online.
The quotations I have used from The Plague are from the translation by Stuart Gilbert.

15. Other authors cited in the text are:
De Beauvoir (1947): Simone De Beauvoir: Ethics of Ambiguity is published by Open Road
Media (2018). Also at https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/ethics/de-beauvoir/
ambiguity/
Hanna (1956): Thomas L Hanna: Albert Camus and the Christian Faith in Journal of
Religion, 36, 1956, 224-233. Also at https://www.jstor.org/stable/1201083?
seq=5#metadata_info_tab_contents
Hoffman (2017): Louis Hoffman: Privilege, Existential Guilt and Responsibility in Existential
Therapy at https://existential-therapy.com/privilege-existential-guilt-and-responsibility/
Holveck (1999): Eleanore Holveck: The Blood of Others: A Novel Approach to The Ethics
of Ambiguity in Hypatia, 14, 1999, 3-17. Also at https://www.jstor.org/stable/3810823?
seq=6#metadata_info_tab_contents
Lombardi (2020): Jamie Lombardi: Albert Camus on Love and the Absurd in IAI News,
Issue 85, 14 February 2020 at https://iai.tv/articles/albert-camus-on-love-and-the-absurd-
auid-1317
Pellauer and Dauenhauer (2002, revised 2016): David Pellauer and Bernard Dauenhauer:
Paul Ricoeur in Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy at https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/
ricoeur/
Sartre (1946): Jean-Paul Sartre: Existentialism and Humanism is published by Penguin
Books. There are also some PDF versions online. The quotation is from the translation by
Philip Mairet.
Warner (2003): Marina Warner: To be a Man in The Guardian, 26 April 2003 at https://
www.theguardian.com/books/2003/apr/26/classics.albertcamus