The plague
The plague ( French La Peste ) is a novel by Albert Camus from 1947.
After five years of work, Albert Camus completed his novel “The Plague” at the end of the first post-war year in 1946. Shortly after its publication in June 1947, the work was a great success. As one of the most important novels of the Resistance and the French post-war literature, the chronicle has become a common property of European culture and thus world-famous. In France in particular, it is part of the compulsory reading in schools.
The background to the work is Camus' personal experiences - especially those of the Second World War . Thus “The Plague” is a reflection from a distant point of view on people's resistance to physical and moral destruction, but at the same time forms an important part of Camus' philosophy, the examination of absurdity . Since the storyline has the structure of a drama with five acts, the work was also performed as a play in many countries.
About the creation of the novel
The biographical peculiarities of Albert Camus are reflected, as in many of his works, in the novel "The Plague". The relatively long period of creation of five years, often referred to in biographies as "plague years" or " exile ", offers a lot of material in terms of content:
In September 1939, after the outbreak of war, Camus volunteered for military service. However, because of his tuberculosis , he was turned away. After losing his editorial position, the author travels to Oran , the home of his second wife Francine Faure. In March 1940 he got a job as an editorial secretary for the successful evening paper " Paris-Soir ", which called for the move to Paris . At first, separating from his home town of Algiers is quite difficult, as he is still a stranger to Paris. Nevertheless, he finished his first group of works within a very short time, which consists of the novel “ The Stranger ”, the essay “ The Myth of Sisyphus ” and the crowning drama “ Caligula ”. This trilogy gives him the breakthrough. In the same year he begins work on his novel "The Plague".
His restless life during the World War took place between France and Algeria. After the great effort to complete his trilogy, his lung disease broke out again in 1942; This is followed by a cure in southern France, whereupon he returns to Paris and a little later starts work for the resistance newspaper "Le Combat" in Paris. In the last year of the war he becomes the father of twins - Catherine and Jean.
The history of the Second World War, the National Socialist concentration camps and the extermination of the Jews , the Stalin show trials and the first atomic bombing , which Camus saw , required him to reflect. “The plague” offers him the appropriate opportunities to process the personal elements of his state of siege in Oran, the long separation from his wife and also his experiences of months in hospital because of his tuberculosis.
«Il n'y a rien de plus ignoble que la maladie. »
"There is nothing more shameful than illness ."
Through the main character Rieux, while writing the novel, he discovered a new kind of humanism that can be equated with solidarity . In doing so, Camus spans the spectrum from the absurd to revolt and humanism.
Significance within Camus' philosophy
The novel also represents a further development of Camus' philosophy . In his essay “ Der Mythos des Sisyphos ” (1942, French: “Le mythe de Sisyphe”), the play “ Caligula ” (first performance in 1945) and in “ The Stranger “Camus develops his philosophy of the absurd , which has some echoes of existentialism . Camus, however, resisted this ascription all his life.
“Die Pest” also has this philosophy as a basis, but goes beyond it. Camus introduces the element of constant revolt against the senselessness of the world, as it is later fully developed in his essay “ The man in the revolt ” (“l'homme révolté”, 1951). In particular, however, the values of solidarity, friendship and love are added as a possible way out, even if the absurdity can never be completely eliminated.
At this point it should be noted that the term "révolte", which is often mentioned as Camus' approach to a solution in connection with the absurd, is not necessarily to be equated with the German translations " revolte , rebellion or revolution ", among other things because their contents are ( Upheaval , uprising or "reversal") outside of humanism. Rather, his révolte meant "saying yes to the inevitable" and assuming "unlimited respect for the other", regardless of whether he was ostracized or convicted of a despicable act like the prisoner in his story "The Guest". For this reason, for Camus, révolte cannot be separated from solidarity.
Content and structure
content
Camus describes the course of the plague in the city of Oran on the Algerian coast from the point of view of the main character Dr. Bernard Rieux, who, however, only reveals himself to be the “author of the chronicle” at the end of the novel. The story begins in the year "194 ...". A few dead rats and a few harmless cases of an unknown disease are the beginnings of a terrible plague epidemic, which brings the whole city into a state of emergency , isolates it from the outside world and kills several thousand. The plague threatens the human existence of the population and thus becomes their common enemy. Everyone takes on this almost hopeless fight against the Black Death in their own way. As a doctor, Rieux fights against the disease like Sisyphus and gets into a dispute with Father Paneloux, among others, who interprets the plague as God's punishment for the chastening of people.
The absurd, however, remains a constant companion: Innocent children die just as much as people who deserve it.
People also die who show solidarity, develop friendships and thus try to escape the futility of their existence - like the friend and companion of the doctor Rieux, Tarrou.
construction
In the structure of his novel, Albert Camus based himself heavily on the schema of classical drama . The development of the disease goes hand in hand with the temperature of the seasons (heat). Compare the table:
1st spring Act I: Exposition → Rieux finds a rat, the plague begins 2nd summer Act II: intensification → the plague becomes stronger 3. Late summer III. Act: climax → plague reaches its climax 4th autumn IV act: Retarding moment → people die or falling action → plague "falls away" 5. Winter 5th act: dissolution / catastrophe → back to normal
Person constellations: PEST → absurdity
As usual in classic drama, Camus introduces the most important characters in the novel in the first chapter. The figures are in detail:
- Rieux: a doctor who embodies charity and moral courage . He's an atheist .
- Grand: a small town hall employee who wants to write a novel, but never gets past the first sentence.
- Paneloux: Jesuit enpater who regards the plague as God's punishment and whose sermons play an important role for a large part of the population.
- Tarrou: young man and neighbor of Rieux '. He is politically active and founds a protection group.
- Rambert: Journalist who came to Algeria to write an article on the “ Arab question ” but never does.
- Cottard: Retiree who attempts suicide and has stopped participating in life. As a convict and smuggler , he benefits from the plague, which also brings him back to life and society.
- Othon: Judge. He and his son die of the plague as the period fades.
- Castel: Professor who developed a serum against the plague.
- The old Spaniard: pea-counting asthmatic and patient Rieux.
- Some smugglers and people- pushing people : Raoul, Garcias.
In many characters there are connections to Camus' own biography, starting with Grand writer's block for his novel, through Tarrou's political engagement, to Rieux's spatial separation from his wife (how Camus was separated from Francine) and the state of siege that affected everyone Plague, in Camus' life through the war, and of course his lifelong disease, tuberculosis .
| Character: | Died / survived: | Sick of the plague: | → Connection to Camus biography |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rieux | survived | No | Close relationship with mother, political commitment; Kabylia , long separation from his wife |
| Tarrou | died | Yes | Father, political engagement; Kabylia |
| Rambert | survived | No | Journalism profession; Time in exile |
| Grand | survived | Yes | Writer's block |
| Cottard | crazy | No | Connection to " Sisyphus " ( suicide attempt as absurdity) |
| Paneloux | died | Yes | The atheist Camus uses the figure of the Jesuit priest to express his rejection of religion. |
Grouping in four phases
Camus divides people into four groups in "The Plague". At first, similar to the grouping created in his first work stage, he pursues three main groups: those of the ignorant, those who know about absurdity and revolt , and those who have overcome the phase of revolt and act in solidarity. Finally, he crowns the first three phases with the fourth, that of universal love .
| Phase 4 | - | Universal love: Rieux |
|---|---|---|
| Phase 3 | - | Have overcome phase of revolt u. are in solidarity:
Grand, Rambert, Castel |
| Phase 2 | death | Knowledge of absurdity and revolt: Tarrou, Cottard |
| Phase 1 | death | Ignorant people |
The principle of plague can be illustrated by the difference between Rambert and Grand when looking at Figure 2. Both survive because they showed solidarity early on (- third phase). Grand fell ill with the plague, whereas Rambert was spared. The journalist has a love for his wife and at the same time takes up the fight against the plague in order to maintain this love. At first he says: “I've had enough of people who die for an idea, I'm only interested in living and dying from what I love,” and finally he is converted from egoist to altruist and joins him Auxiliaries and stay healthy.
Reaching phase 4
There are different ways of fighting the plague: With the physical means of a medical doctor or with metaphysical means, as in the novel by the Jesuit Father Paneloux. But only Rieux reached the fourth phase.
Towards the end of the plague epidemic, Rieux saw a “definitive defeat that ended the wars and made an incurable disease out of peace. ... he believed he knew ... that peace would never be possible for himself, just as there is no truce for the mother who has lost her son or for the man who is burying his friend. "(P. 343) One would like to think that this attitude is to be equated with a resignation (phase 2). But Dr. Bernard Rieux not only made use of in his fight as a doctor of revolt (. Not dt Revolution ), but by the character at the end when "author [this chronicle] ... in the role of factual witnesses committed," he attains the highest stage - universal love. In order to save future generations from the sleep of oblivion, Rieux made the records. He knows "that the plague bacillus never dies or disappears ... and that perhaps the day will come when the plague, for misfortune and to educate people, will wake up its rats and send them back to die in a happy city" (p. 366), and is thus at the highest level.
Historical context
"Resistance interpretation"
Although “The Plague” is a metaphysical novel in which the plague symbolizes the evil that every human being carries, an allusion to the Second World War and occupied France is unmistakable. Since the contemporary readers had lived through exactly what Albert Camus describes in his novel in the picture of Oran , this aspect was immediately evident to them.
Already the quote from Daniel Defoe in the novel : "It is just as sensible to portray a kind of captivity by another as something that is really present by something that does not exist." Indicates the allegorical character of the work.
In the first sentence: "The strange events to which this chronicle is dedicated happened in 194 ... in Oran." Camus uses an imprecise time specification, which on the one hand indicates the timelessness of his topic, which says that the plague / war affects everyone Time could return. On the other hand, "194 ..." is to be understood as a clear allusion to the war years and the occupation . Be it 1940, the year in which France was occupied by the Germans and Albert Camus spent three months in the city of Oran, or 1943, in which the "curfew rule" even seized Paris. These data point to a "Resistance interpretation" or an approach that equates the plague disease not only with war, but also with totalitarianism , Nazism , fascism and sometimes even communism .
Camus had spent 1942 in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon , a place that later became known worldwide for the fact that its residents hid thousands of refugees from the Nazis and the allied Vichy officials and thereby saved many lives.
Symbols for war
"The plague" contains a number of symbols for war, which refer to individual terms as well as entire descriptions of the situation. The following text examples are taken from the 1958 edition of Karl Rauch Verlag: At the beginning of the plague epidemic, as soon as the epidemic was mentioned by name, Rieux compares plague and war with each other and even equates the two terms: “There are just as many on earth Plagues given like wars. And yet plague and war always find people defenseless "(p. 46). Thereupon he condemns the war as nonsensical, which is to be understood as an allusion to the "comic war", the " Drôle de guerre " (Eng. Seated war ). “When a war breaks out, people say, 'It can't be long, it's too nonsensical.' And no doubt war is really too nonsensical, but that doesn't stop it from going on for long. Stupidity is always persistent. ”(P. 46) The absurdity of war is thematized with this contrast. The following sentence could refer to both the stupidity of Nazi Germany and the persistent stupidity of all war leaders. In any case, the initial quotations in the novel are to be understood as clear indications of a war-related interpretation.
Furthermore, there are countless short text examples, the choice of words of which the reader is inevitably reminded of war. The keywords describe ambiguous situations in which war and plague are freely interchangeable: rationing, curfew, state of emergency , patrols ... etc. (p. 211) or “cannon thunder” (p. 354) are just a few examples.
Above all, however, there is talk of “separation and exile” (p. 197), of the long “… hours of imprisonment” (p. 143) - the “state of siege ” (p. 200), in which everyone can show what for a person he really is. The situation of the helpless population in a place cut off from the world, in which everyone fights the plague in their own way or simply endures it, becomes clear: "... not the night of battle, but of silence ... [the silence follows] the plague, the attack on the gates ”(p. 342).
conclusion
Ultimately, “The Plague” is a novel about war, not about acts of war at the front , “but about everyday life in a state of siege , about life behind the barbed wire”. Gabriel García Marquez writes that Albert Camus is not mistaken - the drama is not the trams crammed with corpses, but the agonizing living who have to lay down the flowers; Camus did not experience “the plague, but he must have sweated blood and water on those terrible nights of the occupation when he wrote secret editorials in his hiding place in Paris, while outside the shots of the Nazis while hunting down resistance fighters could be heard ".
As a parable of the Resistance, “The Plague” is a plea for solidarity among people in the fight against death and tyranny.
Since the absurd can never be undone, the plague, the absurd (and thus the war) in the novel are viewed as inalterable powers of fate. In this regard, the danger of not playing down totalitarianism as a "biological fact" has often been pointed out. At this point it should be emphasized that Albert Camus , who throughout his life fought against all forms of oppression, particularly on a political level, did not want to become the spokesman for xenophobia issues. The two different attitudes: “the defense of people” and “the consent to the annihilation of people in the name of an ideological principle” he does not follow up in a later preface to the letters (Lettre à un ami allemand / letters to a German friend) national criteria.
“I oppose two attitudes, not two peoples […]. When the author of these letters says 'you', he does not mean 'you Germans', but 'you Nazi'. When he says 'we' it doesn't always mean 'we French' but 'we free Europeans'. "
Solidarity , cooperation and independent action (regardless of religion) are seen in Camu's philosophy as the highest human values.
Editions and translations
- La Peste. Librairie Éditions Gallimard , Paris 1947.
- The plague. Translated by Guido G. Meister. Karl Rauch Verlag , Bad Salzig 1949.
- The plague. Translated by Guido G. Meister. rororo , Reinbek 1983.
- The plague. Translated by Uli Aumüller . rororo, Reinbek 1998. ISBN 978-3-499-22500-0 .
Film adaptations
- The plague ("La peste"). France / Great Britain / Argentina 1992. Directed by Luis Puenzo .
radio play
- Die Pest , radio play in three parts based on the novel of the same name, WDR / NDR 2010, director: Frank-Erich Hübner , translation: Uli Aumüller, arrangement: Felix Partenzi; 2 CD, running time 139 min. With Götz Schubert , Jürgen Tarrach , Gerd Wameling , Felix Goeser and others. a., Der Audio Verlag, Berlin, review on Hoerspieleipps.net
- Marathon reading 120 votes in 10 hours: Corona Project 2020 from the Rabenhoftheater Vienna, online at fm4.orf.at for 1 month.
play
- The plague performed in the Bockenheimer Depot of the Schauspiel Frankfurt am Main , production: Martin Kloepfer, premiere: January 30, 2010.
literature
- Klaus Bahners: Albert Camus, The Plague. Presentation and interpretations. Joachim Beyer, Hollfeld 2000.
- Frauke Frausing-Vosshage: Albert Camus, The plague. King's Explanations and Materials , 165. C. Bange Verlag, Hollfeld 2004, ISBN 978-3-8044-1799-1 Also as an e-book , PDF from the publisher (predecessor: Edgar Neis: Explanations to Albert Camus' Die Pest, Der Mythos von Sisyphos , Der Mensch in der Revolte . 5th new, extended edition. 1977, most recently in 1996, ibid., ISBN 3-8044-0202-X ).
- Bernd Lutz, Hrsg .: Metzler Philosophen Lexikon. Three hundred biographical and industrial history portraits from the pre-Socratics to the New Philosophers. JB Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Stuttgart 1989.
- Stefan Neuhaus: Outline of literary studies. 2nd over Edition. A. Francke Verlag, Tübingen 2005.
- Knut Nievers: La Peste . In: Kindlers New Literature Lexicon . Munich 1996 ISBN 3-463-43200-5 . Reprint Komet, 2001, ISBN 3-89836-214-0 . On CD-Rom: United Soft Media, ISBN 3-634-99900-4 .
- Emmett Parker: Albert Camus. The artist in the arena. University of Wisconsin Press. Madison / Milwaukee / London 1966.
- Brigitte Sendet: Albert Camus. Rowohlt, Reinbek 1995.
- Marie-Laure Wieacker-Wolff: Albert Camus. Series: dtv portrait. Deutscher Taschenbuchverlag, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-423-31070-7 (biography).
- Olivier Todd: Albert Camus. Une vie. NRF Biographies series . Gallimard, Paris 1996.
- German: Albert Camus. One life. Rowohlt, Reinbek 1999, ISBN 3-498-06516-5 (as TB ibid. 2001, ISBN 3-499-22919-6 ).
