Than • ☒
by
.
Hegg
Albert Camus
#
summary
of notes
, Albert Camus [1913-1960]
“the Plague” (1947)
Contradictory forces shaped the life of the Nobel laureate (1957) writer. On the one hand, death
and poverty surrounded his early years as well as the most part of his adult life. On the other, the
warmth and the vitality of the Algerian sun nourished his soul and spirit. These early experiences
of his sad fate and of the Algerian people who evolved out of generations of sufferings endured,
gave Camus his fundamental understanding of humanity.
However it was the 2nd W.W. that changed everything for Camus. For him, the war had destroyed
overnight the ancient and traditional structures of meaning, which European culture had
developed so far. For millions, existence from being the orderly and illuminated thing ancient
traditions declared it to be, became chaotic, meaningless, “absurd”. Skepticism, nihilism and
pessimism prevailed life in the 20th century. During these terrible times Camus’ values found voice
and took universal validity. “The myth of Sisyphus” came out in 1938 and without denying the
misery associated with the absurd, it gave it a new resonance, which included more possibilities,
even that of happiness. The central question of “The myth of Sisyphus” is: given the
meaninglessness of life, how can people be happy? Life becomes meaningless, i.e. absurd, when
man acknowledges his own mortality. Basically in this work Camus explores the absurd and argues
in favor of the worth of the individual’s life. He denies suicide as the answer to the absurd, to
Death. He claims that taking one’s own life is cowardice. In his answer, he firstly proposes to accept
life’s limits and secondly to live it to its fullest. This is Camus’ renowned categorical imperative of
happiness, which is prevalent in all of his works. According to that, the true revolt against death is
man’s duty to be happy and that will destroy the absurd as well.
Almost ten years later, Camus moves from the private to the public, and starts developing his
philosophy of revolt. The theme of the absurd remains, with the difference that now man is not
standing alone against the absurd, but instead he realizes that he shares a common suffering with -
all men. The absurd may manifest itself in various forms in man’s life, but now the solidarity that
characterizes human existence comes in the context as well. Camus deals with the notion of
rebellion in a number of his works, such as “The Rebel” (1951) and “A note on Revolt”, both of
which inform a great deal the backbone of his second novel “the Plague” (1947). What he achieves
in those works, is to go beyond justification for individual existence- i.e. what he did in MOS- to a
-
justification of all existence, and inbrief the question asked is: “given the absurd, is murder
justifiable?” In other words, since rebellion becomes necessary in the human existence in order to
ensure the preservation of some value, how can men salvage the good of rebellion from the evil to
which most revolutions lead, which according to Camus is to not respect the integrity, freedom and
life of the other in the name of some abstract ideological conviction? This is one of the issues that
are covered in The Plague, which follows a common pattern in the fiction of Camus, that of the
normal happy community, which is dislocated by some force or other that is identified as the
plague or death and as a result life becomes meaningless causing a reaction, some type of rebellion,
which although starts in isolation, it leads in solidarity and finally the “plague” is overthrown. Yet,
this primacy of order is only temporary because Death doesn’t die.
by
.
Hegg
Albert Camus
#
summary
of notes
, Albert Camus [1913-1960]
“the Plague” (1947)
Contradictory forces shaped the life of the Nobel laureate (1957) writer. On the one hand, death
and poverty surrounded his early years as well as the most part of his adult life. On the other, the
warmth and the vitality of the Algerian sun nourished his soul and spirit. These early experiences
of his sad fate and of the Algerian people who evolved out of generations of sufferings endured,
gave Camus his fundamental understanding of humanity.
However it was the 2nd W.W. that changed everything for Camus. For him, the war had destroyed
overnight the ancient and traditional structures of meaning, which European culture had
developed so far. For millions, existence from being the orderly and illuminated thing ancient
traditions declared it to be, became chaotic, meaningless, “absurd”. Skepticism, nihilism and
pessimism prevailed life in the 20th century. During these terrible times Camus’ values found voice
and took universal validity. “The myth of Sisyphus” came out in 1938 and without denying the
misery associated with the absurd, it gave it a new resonance, which included more possibilities,
even that of happiness. The central question of “The myth of Sisyphus” is: given the
meaninglessness of life, how can people be happy? Life becomes meaningless, i.e. absurd, when
man acknowledges his own mortality. Basically in this work Camus explores the absurd and argues
in favor of the worth of the individual’s life. He denies suicide as the answer to the absurd, to
Death. He claims that taking one’s own life is cowardice. In his answer, he firstly proposes to accept
life’s limits and secondly to live it to its fullest. This is Camus’ renowned categorical imperative of
happiness, which is prevalent in all of his works. According to that, the true revolt against death is
man’s duty to be happy and that will destroy the absurd as well.
Almost ten years later, Camus moves from the private to the public, and starts developing his
philosophy of revolt. The theme of the absurd remains, with the difference that now man is not
standing alone against the absurd, but instead he realizes that he shares a common suffering with -
all men. The absurd may manifest itself in various forms in man’s life, but now the solidarity that
characterizes human existence comes in the context as well. Camus deals with the notion of
rebellion in a number of his works, such as “The Rebel” (1951) and “A note on Revolt”, both of
which inform a great deal the backbone of his second novel “the Plague” (1947). What he achieves
in those works, is to go beyond justification for individual existence- i.e. what he did in MOS- to a
-
justification of all existence, and inbrief the question asked is: “given the absurd, is murder
justifiable?” In other words, since rebellion becomes necessary in the human existence in order to
ensure the preservation of some value, how can men salvage the good of rebellion from the evil to
which most revolutions lead, which according to Camus is to not respect the integrity, freedom and
life of the other in the name of some abstract ideological conviction? This is one of the issues that
are covered in The Plague, which follows a common pattern in the fiction of Camus, that of the
normal happy community, which is dislocated by some force or other that is identified as the
plague or death and as a result life becomes meaningless causing a reaction, some type of rebellion,
which although starts in isolation, it leads in solidarity and finally the “plague” is overthrown. Yet,
this primacy of order is only temporary because Death doesn’t die.
