Advice:
If you have a few minutes, read "The Myth of Sisyphus" in your existentialism handout. Look for connections as you read the novel.
Try to get a handle on the following characters quickly. I recommend making some notes in which you jot down their professions and any information you get about how they view the world. Understanding their philosophies will be crucial to making sense of this book.
- Dr. Rieux
- M. Cottard (that "M" is French for our "Mr.")
- Joseph Grand
- Jean Tarrou
- Father Paneloux
- Raymond Rambert
Questions: I intend these as mere "jumping off" points--I hope that, just as in class, the discussion will branch out widely from here.
1. What do you think about the description of a narrator's role in the first chapter?
2. What do you think about the description of this town? What do you know about Algeria and its connection to France?
3. Does the town's reaction to the unfolding events seem realistic? Can you compare it to any historical event or events?
Passages: Again, don't be limited by these. Think of them as starting points. I'm not giving you page numbers because I don't have the same book as you yet. Feel free to add them!
" It was as if the earth on which our houses stood were being purged of its secreted humors; thrusting up to the surface the abscesses and pus-clots that had been forming in its entrails."
" At Oran, as elsewhere, for lack of time and thinking, people have to love one another without knowing much about it."
"The language he used was that of a man who was sick and tired of the world he lived in--though he had much liking for his fellow men--and had resolved, for his part, to have no truck with injustice and compromises with the truth."
"Stupidity has a knack of getting its way."
"...in other words they were humanists: they disbelieved in pestilences..."
"They fancied themselves free, and no one will ever be free so long as there are pestilences."