1. In the final installment of The Plague, what becomes of Oran?

2. How do people react after a disaster, and what do they do?

3. Why is the plague a metaphor for “purity in life”?

4. Can we resist “forgetting”?

The story concerns an outbreak in Oran, Algeria, where a sudden plague leaves everyone at a loss.

Politicians are arrogant and ignorant, conceal facts, shift blame, and even try to profit from the disaster. An obscure man who once led a listless life suddenly becomes a prominent figure by using black-market connections to bring prohibited goods into the city. Ordinary people are frightened and helpless, selfish and greedy, living from day to day in despair.

The plague-stricken city is sealed off and no one can enter or leave freely. Those trapped inside constantly long for relatives and friends outside. A journalist visiting on assignment is forced to live without family or friends and joins a volunteer team simply to pass the time. Dr. Rieux steps forward to treat the sick and forms deep friendships with several companions, while his own wife remains far away in a sanatorium, her fate unknown.

Albert Camus (November 7, 1913–January 4, 1960) was born in Mondovi, French Algeria. A French novelist, philosopher, playwright, and critic, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1957.

At the heart of Camus’s thought is humanism and the question of human dignity, a fundamental concern that ran through his writing, life, and political struggles. The Myth of Sisyphus and The Stranger established the central themes of his literary work and contain the key questions of his later writings. In proposing that Sisyphus is happy, Camus’s essential motive lies not in the absurd, because the absurd cannot tell us what happiness or unhappiness is. He imagines Sisyphus as happy because only a happy life accords with human dignity. Revolt is what manifests dignity. Condemned to eternal punishment yet happy, Sisyphus embodies revolt—the only form of revolt possible under those conditions.

The cool, expansive sky shimmered above the buildings, while near the hills the stars looked unusually hard, like flint. He remembered the night when he and Tarrou had climbed onto this terrace and put the plague aside. Tonight was not very different, except that the sea sounded louder at the foot of the cliffs. The air was light and motionless, freed from the salty scent carried by the warm autumn wind. Yet the city’s waves of noise still beat against the walls below the rooftop. This, however, was a night of deliverance rather than resistance. In the distance, a dark-red glow marked the brightly lit boulevards and squares. On this night of liberation, desire had broken free, and its roar reached Rieux’s ears.

The first official fireworks rose from the darkened harbor. A prolonged cheer from the entire city drifted toward him. Cottard, Tarrou, and the men and woman whom Rieux had loved and lost—whether dead or guilty—were all forgotten now. The old invalid had been right: people were always the same. Yet this was both their strength and their innocence, and beyond all his suffering, Rieux joined them in these. The cheering continued, rising wave after wave and echoing below the terrace, while multicolored fireworks filled the sky ever more densely. Dr. Rieux therefore decided to write the chronicle that ends here: not to join those who remain silent, but to bear witness for the victims of the plague, to leave at least a record of the injustice and violence done to them, and to state simply what one learns amid such disasters—that there is more in human beings to admire than to despise.

Yet he also knew that this chronicle could not be the account of a final victory. It bears witness only to what people were compelled to do in danger, and to what must be done again when similar circumstances return: all those who cannot be saints but refuse to submit to calamity must set aside their private suffering, strive to be healers, and tirelessly resist the terror produced by pestilence and its weapons.

Rieux listened to the joyful clamor rising from the city but did not forget that such joy was always under threat. He knew what the rejoicing crowd did not: medical books tell us that the plague bacillus never dies or disappears. It can lie dormant for decades in furniture, linen, cellars, trunks, handkerchiefs, or scraps of paper, patiently waiting for the day when plague once again rouses its rats and sends them to die in a happy city, bringing disaster and instruction to its people.

What is a person writing for?