Comments

• Anna (the coolest!)

  I remember my essay on The Stranger being about Camus' use of the sky, air and sun. I found it really intriguing and still do, now that I see it is a regular theme for him. Everything marked by the sun, the dust, the heat; different human actions, emotions are set in accordance with the passing of the day and light. I kind of connect this to the guy with the peas, who knows what time it is according to them. It seems that, like the asthmatic man, the whole town, who now is also constantly ill, is absorbed by animal instincts/ needs. Not that this is Lord of the Flies, but that really, it seems to me that the less and less freedom the people get, the more and more important are the air, the heat, the weather, etc. Or, put this way, the more and more less human they can live, the more the natural world gains importance.

  3/10/2009 12:57:51 PM
• brie

  What I was thinking while I was reading this section was how Camus so easily says so many things about humanity throughout this novel. First he uses the example of how everyone goes to church to 'pay' for their sins and that's why the plague has hit their town. They believe Father Paneloux almost instantly because they have nothing else to believe in. Another one is that now that the town has been closed off for a long period of time, everyone in it has grown accustomed to the feeling of exile and alienation. This idea that everyone will just accept their ill fate if given long enough. It strikes me as interesting that he makes huge claims about humanity so effortlessly.

  3/10/2009 10:17:26 PM
• Kelsey

  Throughout the duration of this entire reading, we see how people have had to ajust their lives according to the plague. No one laughs, but the drunks laugh too much; their day depends on, as anna said, their own instincts; religion has gone by the way side as people try to take every moment they can to simply live. There are two parts in particular, however, that I like the best. The first is when the old man said that he would have much more prefered that an earthquake come through so they can count up the bodies and move on, but as it stands, everyone, even those who are not sick, suffers. The second is at the very end when Tarrou sais "Death means nothing to me like me. It's the event that proves them right" (111). If that's not existental, i don't know what is.

  3/12/2009 10:36:50 AM
• Kyle

  pages 120-127 are very crucial, in them Camus takes a break from his unique omniscient first person narration of Rieux, and lets the narrator (Rieux), explain some things out of context. On page 120 he talks about the root of all evil, and how ignorance is a terrible vice. This can be tied back to something i believe Bennett said about the leaders being ignorant and not saying what was really happening. Bennett said this may be one of Camus' main points, and he was correct! The ignorance of the common human is one of Camus' main points, Camus wants to show that action is the proper course in existentialism, not nihilism, and in doing so he uses this theme of ignorance to prove his point.

  3/13/2009 3:52:07 PM
• Sarah

  I think that Kelsey makes a very interesting point, and I'm so glad she brought up the part where the earthquake is mentioned. I think that this idea of sudden, catasrophic disaster is preferable to their current situation is another pointed comment on humanity as brie was saying. We, as humans, always try especially in our culture to obtain instant gratification whether in knowledge, sadness, or grief because we want to shy away from drawn out pain. With this idea of a huge blow to their society instead of having the knowledge and continuous fear of the persistent plague, we see the essence of human weakness.

  3/17/2009 4:27:46 PM
• Patrice

  I completely agree with Kyle that one of Camus' main points in this section is the prevalence of mankind's ignorance. This theme is quite existential as is the point of the absurdity of life which I have viewed as being a continuous theme in this novel and which I thought was particularly important in this section. Camus describes the deteriorating condition of the people of Oran; the massive numbers of deaths, the hostility they feel as the result of their captivity, and the desertion of religion as Kelsey said to simply live. Through all of this people like Dr. Rieux continue to fight the people's suppressor, the plague. Yet as Tarrou pointed out, the doctor's medical "victories will never be lasting...A never ending defeat," (pg. 118). This is a clear example of the absurdity of life; the fact that no matter what effort is made against the plague, and no matter how strong it may be, it will make no difference, people will die anyway. Another example of Camus stressing this idea of life's absurdity is in the final part of this section when Dr. Rieux is listening to the radio. The broadcast is made by people outside of Oran who wish to express their sympathies for the people there. Camus shows through the thoughts of Dr. Rieux that though their sympathies may be genuine, their method of expression can never be enough as there is an "utter incapacity of every man truly to share in suffering that he cannot see," (pg. 127). This is the returning idea of the insufficiency of language for communication and the inability to ever fully relate to others which are both ideas which compose that of the absurdity of life.

  3/24/2009 10:12:54 PM
• Anna (the coolest!)

  Ugh! I should not have read ahead cause I really want to talk about the asthma patient at the end of the book...oh well I'll stick to the rules.
  I have a question for everyone. Why does the asthma patient have some kind of malicious glee for the fact that the plague is not only there but that it worsens? Or is it malicious at all, and I'm just interpreting it wrong? The asthma patient, I think, is the most confusing character to me, because he is a man absorbed completely by present thoughts and basic needs, so wouldn't death and despair bring the opposite effect to him??? Oh...I think I just answered my own question, haha. He lives so entirely in the present that anything that could affect the future is no concern. Hmmm....

  3/25/2009 12:37:27 PM