Philosophy

     As I was reading through The Plague, I noticed that many of the characters had very different philosophies and I wonder how Camus being an atheist affected the ideologies throughout the book. As an atheist, Camus thought that life, death, and pain had no profound and rational meaning. But, I think he believed that people could still give meaning to their lives, especially through one principal way: choosing to fight against suffering. 

    When the plague first began, people disregarded it because unless they had been personally affected, they did not see protecting others as important. When they finally realized months later that the plague was still there, they made the effort to stay home, effectively fighting against death. This act of joining together in that effort painted them as heroes because Camus believed this gave meaning to their lives.

    In addition, Rieux and Tarrou (along with the rest of their colleagues) are portrayed as heroes doing a noble deed because they sacrifice their mental health, physical health, and time to be completely devoted to keeping track of the plague and trying their best to help end it.

    I think that Camus' philosophies on life absolutely affected the book and it honestly gave me a perspective of our current situation (and life in general) that I would have never considered.

Comments

  1. AnyaJanuary 6, 2021 at 7:23 PM

    It's interesting how you note that Rieux and his colleagues are portrayed as "heros," especially when you consider that Rieux wrote this chronicle of events from a supposedly objective view. It makes you wonder whether Rieux's portrayal of himself is completely accurate and unbiased...

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  2. EliasJanuary 9, 2021 at 12:49 PM

    This was a nice post, it was interesting reading your perspective regarding Camus' religious philosophies. But the connections you made between that and his writing were very cool. I like the idea of making meaning in a life that would otherwise be meaningless, and it's interesting to think about an entire population as heroes for joining together under unfortunate circumstances.

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