UM Honors Blog 2021-2022

  This whole novel was like a sad fever dream. What really captured my attention was the characters and their sense of purpose. I want to talk specifically about Raymond Rambert. His journey reminds me of T.S. Elliot’s Cocktail Party. The parallel is between Celia and Rambert. Both characters start out as hopeless romantics. In both stories, they are rudely thrust back into reality. This acts as a sort of awakening to their “true purpose”. Rambert was a French journalist full of dreams of his wife and the life they will have when he returns to Paris. Unfortunately, the plague strikes, and the whole city is placed under lockdown. Refusing to give up on his dreams at first he plans an escape. However, this escape plan never comes to fruition. Slowly, Rambert finds his place in the community helping where he can. He decided to stay and fulfill a different purpose. Celia is head-over-heels in love with Edward— Or so she thinks. She agreed to the affair with a married man because she wa...

 Title reference - Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls     As always, I want to put a general trigger warning. I will delve into personal things in this post, as I do in all of my posts. With the darkness that is the subject of "The Plague" I'm sure you can imagine what I talk about. Remember to take care of yourself first and foremost and that you are loved and cared for.       This past reading I used an app called Seachify to help me read. It helped me get it done, but after a certain point, I could no longer grasp the story being told. It wasn't due to me losing interest or the AI reader being monotonous. Rather, I was stuck in one scene as the AI continued reading the chapter. My mind remained on the boy, laying in the bed, tossing and turning in pain. Of him curing up and stretching out, of having brief moments of relief only to be followed by a tsunami of pain. There was no rest for him, not truly, not until he died. I may have perceived it wrong, but I d...

With the end of part four of the Plauge, Dr. Rieux and colleagues have lost all sense of hope. They have seen so much death and pain, and have lost so much sleep, that their strength of sanity is at stake. Slowly, they become less deliberate in their efforts to save and prevent further infection. They become like robots, doing the same duties and tasks over and over with no emotion. And yet, disregarding some duties out of forgetfulness that comes with exhaustion, they put their patients at further risk of transferring the infection. Doesn't this sound familiar? How many times have we denied ourselves the much-needed rest and reward because we were desperate to help the people around us? Though empathy can hurt at times, and be somewhat exhausting and inconvenient, I think it is worse to disregard our mental and emotional health to the point of burn-out simply because those around us are struggling. It is better to feel pain than to feel nothing at all, else you go through life wit...

While Part Four of The Plague  is generally as saddening as the parts preceding it, poor Jacques' agonized death stands out as one of the most tragic deaths in the whole book. One can hardly imagine the grief the parents would have felt, had Tarrou told the truth about what happened when M. Othon said, "I hope Jacques did not suffer too much" (Camus, p. 241). Yet when I first read how Tarrou responds by saying that he "couldn't really say he suffered," I caught myself struggling with this question: was it right for Tarrou to lie in this situation? But after thinking it over, I cannot say that I believe Tarrou was wrong. In this case, it was perfectly ethical for Tarrou to lie to Jacques' father. This is how I personally address this ethical-deception issue. Assuming that the commands of Scripture dictate whether an act is morally acceptable or not, one should consider that every moral statute can be summarized in two overarching principles, which are bas...

Near the beginning of Part 4, Cottard cements himself as the absolute worst of those stuck in the town. He sees great advantage in the conditions of the plague and does not make himself useful to help fight the disease because the end of the plague means him potentially being put in a poor situation with the law. Instead, he is unhelpful and solely concerned with "Number 1." He does not care to help lessen the load of the pestilence, and it is ultimately because he sees it as his saving grace. Instead of deciding that "he's in it with the others" in the way that our communities largely responded when COVID-19 hit and the optimistic ideal that we were all in it together became prominent (p. 195). Instead of this being a potentially half-hearted shot at making the best of a bad situation, Cottard sees this as the good situation itself. Disturbingly, he does not seem to have compassion for those around him because he is satisfied with the suffering of others being ...

 The main thing that stuck out to me in Part 4 was how Rambert chose to stay in the city. He had everything in place to leave and go to his lover that night, but suddenly made the decision to stay in the desolate, plague-ridden city. He admits that he doesn't really understand why he made that decision. After all, the only thing he had been focused on since the plague started was getting out of there as quickly as possible. But after all the time he had spent there, something felt wrong about leaving them all there while he was happy on the outside. I think it might have something to do with the bonds he made while he was stuck there. It wasn't intentional to become close to these people. Rambert states the following: "Until now I always felt a stranger in this town, and that I'd no concern with you people. But now that I've seen what I have seen, I know that I belong here whether I want it or not. This business is everybody's business." I really believe t...

               One of the most important events and arguably the climax in both a literary and thematic context of The Plague is the death of Jacques Othon. The way Camus structures the description of his death is one of the best uses of imagery throughout the novel, as he purposefully details every excruciating aspect of his death and prolongs the description for multiple pages. This is an extremely significant moment in the novel, as it develops multiple characters in important ways, particularly Father Paneloux. It is through the child’s death that he reconsiders much of his religion and standpoints regarding death, and he ultimately concludes that God uses suffering and evil for good somehow. His view contrasts with that of the other characters throughout the novel, who do not believe in God and therefore have a much more absurdist view of death, believing it is indiscriminatory and has no benefits.        ...

 At the beginning of Part 4, it talks about how utterly and completely exhausted Rieux and his friends were. The exhaustion presented itself in “the form of a strange indifference to everything. Men, for instance, who hitherto had shown a keen interest in every scrap of news concerning the plague now displayed none at all.” Honestly, no feeling is worse than any other feeling, at least in my personal opinion. They had just given up on coping with their fatigue. Their coping mechanism was honestly just not feeling at all. Personally, I have been at that point where I literally don’t care what happens. And honestly, looking back at that and talking to friends about it makes me realize that I made a lot of people (including teachers) very worried for me. I don’t want that to happen again I commented on Bug’s and Emory’s posts.

Throughout this story, each character has had a different response to the immanent threat of plague. The plague seems to have been a test of the town's faith or lack thereof. One character whose response struck me as poignant was that of Joseph Grand. The image Grand gives us is one of the existentialist's ideal.  Grand has been writing a book (or so it seems). This book, along with his work as city clerk, has been his means of coping with the plague. In part four of the story we learn that Grand's book consists of fifty pages of the same sentence written in different arrangements over and over again. Each word has been pored over and scrutinized to perfection. To me, this is a picture of the character of the town under the rule of plague. They live in daze, no longer feeling emotion, trying to escape their reality.  At the end of his pages and pages of words that, in their monotony, become meaningless, he writes "'... My dearest Jeanne, Today is Christmas Day and....

     I finally found it. I hope I'm reading this correctly, because I believe there is a brief break in the constant tension that is The Plague . This whole work has an unsettling undertone of death and anxiety, which is expected what with existentialism and its many optimistic qualities. It seems like the characters are always in some sort of action, be it physical or mental. If they aren't treating or cleaning up a patient, the characters are wrestling mentally with what they are going through. For example, Rieux's struggle to write to his dying wife is a stressful read. Reading Camus is like running a marathon: the stress is physically and mentally exhausting. However, there is finally a moment of anxious peace in Part Four, when Rieux and Tarrou leave the asthma patient. Tarrou's moment of vulnerability and Rieux affirming that they are indeed friends is refreshing in such a sad book. I feel like their moment of peace while swimming in the ocean is symbolic of their...

 As I finish reading Part Four, I have no desire to discuss death or the sadness that one hour of true rest is all Tarrou and Rieux can afford nor do I wish to discuss the second sermon or the death of Othon's son. I want to talk only of my love for Grand. He disappears often throughout the narration. Something in me suspects he is the narrator but I ponder if the narrator would be someone the book refers to in third person. I simply am unsure. However, the is besides the point, Grand is such a small character and my sympathy for him is great. Camus paints such a picture of Grand crying to Rieux. It made me almost want to cry. Of course, the screaming of Othon's son as he died painted a very detailed picture of the disgusting and horrid nature of the plague, but that experience is unfamiliar to me entirely. It still makes the plague feel like this far off, unimaginable thing. The pain that Grand shows at the end of Part 4, and the love that I've developed him, feels familia...

How strong is human trust? Is it so strong that it is unbreakable or is its strength merely a façade for what it really is? There are so many mechanics in our society that need a social contract of trust to actually be able to operate. This would include pharmaceuticals, driving on the highway, education, etc. But what happens when that trust seems to waver is devastating. This is what happens in Albert's, The Plague. People began to not trust each other because anyone could be a carrier of the plague. It could even be their spouse, their parent, their child, or their friend. No one is safe and therefore no one is trusted. We had our eyes opened to this when we COVID first began. We still see it now. That contract of trust in between individuals has been injured due to the pandemic and it will most definitely take time to heal. It amazes me to think about because how could such rational beings as humans allow trust to fly out the window in an instant? We would rather choose what ma...

 Throughout reading this book I haven't helped but to constantly compare it to modern day. It is quite funny that we are reading about a plague as we live through one. As I began to read part four I could not help but think about the many months of quarantined we endured wondering when this would all be over. I see this at the beginning of part four as it talked about living at a standstill almost as if the sickness was in control. In the book it states," Throughout September and October the town lay prostrate, at the mercy of the plague." (Camus, 189). I cannot help but remember back to Spring of 2020 when the whole country shut down and sat waiting for the virus to be cured or reduced. We were once at a standstill controlled by a virus that we could not yet control. I cannot help but sympathize with the characters as their situation and the disease they were going through was much worse. Since that spring we have made major advances in the controlling of this virus. Alt...

       It seems that the similarities between The Plague and our very own pandemic continue into the fourth part of the book. In the novel, we see the reaction of the public to the plague and its advances. Understandably, their first response is panic. Now they seem to be in denial somewhat. We know from experience, being cooped up leads to loneliness and depression.       The way the people in the book have chosen to combat these feelings is that of escapism and social interaction. The people flock together in public places just to feel as though they are not alone even if it means the risk of contracting the plague. Cottard and Tarrou join these desperate souls to watch a production of Gluck’s Orpheus. In order to escape their horrific reality, the audience dressed to the nines and pretended that attending this production was a normal thing to do in the midst of a quarantine. When the show ends the audience realized that the show is just a maske...

 When faced with tragedies in life such as pandemics, it is often common yet cliche to pronounce the fact that “everyone is in it together.” However, when exploring the character of Cottard in Part 5 of The Plague  and remembering some of my past experience with the Covid-19 pandemic, I realize how situations such as these in actuality have the capacity to affect people completely differently than others.  For example, when many individuals of Oran were struggling with the common side affects of the plague, whether it be the disease itself, isolation, or loss of loved ones, Cottard was, in an interesting way, thriving. Being set apart from society from the beginning because of his life and past, the plague was a fresh start for Cottard. He no longer felt completely isolated from society because the focus of the townspeople had greatly shifted from normality. Cottard had a strong desire for human connection because his criminal past left him feeling alone with a sense of f...

     In part 4 of the Plague , Tarrou tells Rieux about how he has had the plague forever. Except, this is not the same plague as the one ravaging the town. Tarrou speaks of how his father was a lawyer who believed in the death penalty, how he saw so many people support it and be comfortable about it, and how he had to witness the executions of prisoners. He explains how this sort of mindset is a plague itself, one Tarrou had been fighting for a long time. " That's why everybody in the world looks so tired; everyone is more or less sick of plague. But that is also why some of us, those who want to get the plague out of their systems, feel such desperate weariness, a weariness from which nothing remains to set us free except death" (Camus, part 4, chapter 6). Tarrou wants to desperately not submit to such awful ways of thinking.      Tarrou does not realize it, but the plague he is talking about is sin. Everyone has it, some people give in to it and let...

       On page 222 of "The Plague" Father Peneloux gives a second sermon. I found this sermon to be intriguing. The narrator tells us that the priest changed how he addressed the congregation. He now spoke with "we instead of you" (page 222). The sermon in general is far more sympathetic than the first sermon. He acknowledges that the plague is dastardly and that many have been affected by it. He has an important statement on page 224 that "we must believe everything or deny everything". Even Dr. Rieux finds this statement shocking. This is a true statement in my opinion. In Christianity we have only two choices. We can either believe in Christ or deny Him. Crisis is the greatest tester of one's faith. It will either deepen it or cause it to wither away. It also will drive us closer to people we ordinarily never would have spoken to.     In the context of the story the Father does not lose his faith, but it is deepened. He acknowledged that there was g...

     On page 195 of The Plague , Tarrou brings up Cottard’s theory about how no one ever has two diseases at the same time. He specifically mentions how people with incurable diseases like cancer do not catch things like the plague (Camus). He brings up a good point because I have rarely heard of people having two illnesses at once. I have heard of people having the flu or COVID and then it becoming pneumonia, or cancer patients at the end of there life catching the flu and them dying from it. Other than those two, I have never heard of people having two diseases at once.      We have all seen Cottard’s theory play out in our COVID plague. I remember the winter after COVID first started that very few people caught the flu. It seemed that anyone who got sick had COVID. I found it weird how no one got the flu but according to Cottard’s theory, they could not get the flu because the got COVID first and you can not have both.       I got cur...

 In the book,  The Plague , the people can be seen shifting to believing in superstition rather than religion. During this time, science has not developed as much as it has to today’s standards. This reminds me of when the Jews decided to make a golden calf to worship when Moses did not come down from the mountain quick enough. “Come, make us gods that shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him” (Exodus 32:1b). The people in both instances were afraid and decided to turn towards more of a superstitious belief.  This seems to be a trend with a lot of people in the modern world. Whenever the going gets tough, some people go try to find something that would work better in their minds, and The Plague  does a great job in mirroring what the modern world is like in dire situations. 

I personally really hate reading works that get me in a bad mood. It is kinda my fault since I get too attached to the characters and emotions. Who can I blame if I wanted Gregor to turn back into a human and escape his toxic family. "Im a sucker for happy endings" (Heathers). So, you can imagine my reservations about The Plague. It starts out with people ignoring the horror of what is to come. One thing I dislike more than a sad story is stupid people reacting to bad things happening to them. It is like the feeling of when you watch a horror movie where the main characters hide in a butcher's shop or a garage full of chainsaws. If this is the beginning of The Plague, then I do not have high expectations for my emotional state while reading the rest.  I commented on Emory and Sam's posts.

 It seems glaringly obvious that we are expected to connect this book to our own experiences with our current pandemic. This being said, I am happy to oblige— although “happy” might be the wrong word, all things considered.  Much like the rest of the students in the US, my education went online at the start of the pandemic. I understand this was not a positive thing for a lot of students and to a degree I would agree. Personally, I did not enjoy the schoolwork side of being transferred online however I will admit that I did benefit from it.  Similar to the character Cottard, I experienced a certain relief when the pandemic hit. I had been struggling with my mental health before the pandemic. At the start of 2020, I was suffering from massive burnout and the start of depression. My classes were torture to get through and I was barely able to get any homework done. There was a male teacher who made me (along with all of the other female students) feel very uncomfortable in ...

In Part One of Albert Camus'  Plague , one can clearly see how the epidemic takes everyone in Oran by surprise. And no wonder, when the whole of society is structured to disregard death and suffering! "Think what it must be for a dying man, trapped behind hundreds of walls all sizzling with heat, while the whole population, sitting in cafés or hanging on the telephone, is discussing shipments, bills of lading, discounts! It will then be obvious what discomfort attends death, even modern death, when it waylays you under such conditions in a dry place" (Camus, page 5). Yet death and suffering is inevitable: "it is appointed unto man once to die, but after this the judgment" (Hebrews 9:27). Why then does Oran disregard the inevitability of extreme sickness and death? Because it has trained itself to act as if extreme sickness and death, for the present, is unlikely to happen. The society has a concept of the unlikelihood of the inevitable. To demonstrate this fact,...

      One of the most striking passages to me in the whole of the reading can be found on page 37. In this passage, the narrator details how the people of Oran were caught completely off guard by the plague. "When a war breaks out, people say: 'It's too stupid; it can't last long,'" he notes in the second paragraph of page 37. However, as he goes on to say, the ridiculous things of life often seem to get in the way. I have tied this reading back to COVID in both of the comments I have left as well, but I cannot help but notice some chilling parallels to our introduction to the virus. Not only were we so convinced that we as the U.S. could not be so heavily affected by such a health crisis, but we also seemed to feel certain as a culture that the virus would have an expiration date and would vanish one day. However, like other challenges of life, it has not completely disappeared. It often has to be determined how one should respond to a difficulty like COVID a...

 Does not this thinking seem to be the way it always goes? Someone else will help the weary, someone else will help the hungry, someone else will help the poor, and the list goes on. Now, if one has something they are devoted to, like an act of service, one person can only do so much, and they should do it well. However, the case seems to be not that everyone is doing a few meaningful things well. Instead, it looks as if most do many meaningless things poorly. For example, in The Plague, no one at first wants to acknowledge the rats. Can one blame them? It is disgusting. However, dead rats followed by people dying of a plague-like illness are disgusting but warrant action and attention. Additionally, no one wants to be the bearer of bad news either. There is no need to cause panic if it is a minor incident, but are not people entitled to know what is happening? Shouldn't they be given a chance to avoid the unknown? If they continue to go out until there is detailed information, so ...

    There are moments in life where we chose solitude over socializing, productivity over pleasure, or getting ahead over getting together. Now, there is nothing wrong with being productive, with seizing the day and putting in extra work. Yet, how many times has "I'll be there next time," turned into the next, or the next? Perhaps next week? Or the next one after that. No, no you'll be there next month, next year/ Next time may never come and in light of catastrophic events it may be more than procrastination that makes "next time" become "never." The town of Oran is unappealing, seemingly insignificant, but it is the focus of our tale. The townsfolk had their life swept out from under them like a magician's trick gone wrong. It all tumbles and crashes to the ground, and everyone scrambles for a sense of freedom, peace, and normalcy.      Sounds awfully familiar, don't you think? This book is well-timed in today's circumstances where th...

 When Camus describes the town of Oran, he emphasizes the fact that it was relatively boring. The people were stricken by their habitual lifestyles, stuck in a cycle of routine day to day. It is heavily implied that the people of Oran were slaves to their own lives, and they were not truly living each day to the fullest. Because of this important description, one is able to see a greater theme implemented by Camus once the plague becomes involved.  When the plague strikes the town, people are overwhelmed and feel the need to escape at all costs, but they are unable to. People inevitably die, and lifestyles turn upside down in the blink of an eye. The people are literally trapped within the plague. However, they were not necessarily free before the plague. One can argue that the people of Oran were never truly free to begin with because they were infected by the plague of meaninglessness in their unintentional slavery to life itself. The people were imprisoned before the plague...

The character that stood out to me the most in this story is Joseph Grand. At first, I was struck by the irony of his name. Grand is described as an overall borning person. The only thing greand about him is his name. However, as the sotry progresses, one sees him in a different light. His character never seems to really change, but the circumstances surrounding him change. Really, Grand is the common factor that allows the reader to see the growth of Dr. Rieux's character. In the beginning, the narrator (Dr. Rieux) used language that highlighted the insignificance of Grand's character. Rieux says Grand "...had nothing of the hero about him..." (Camus, 133). But waht really makes a hero? This question is posed as the plague continues to oppress the town of Oran. People's humanity is tried by fear and their base desires rise to the surface. The plague is a test that determines what makes a man a good man who lives a life that is worthwhile. There are some who turn ...

             Nobody ever thinks something as catastrophic as a plague would ever ruin their life. Perhaps because they are too normal, and those types of things only ever happen in countries with abnormal weather, or overpopulation, or an entirely different culture. Or perhaps it’s because they’re too special, and nothing like that would happen to someone of their status, or wealth, or occupation, or any excuse. Either way, the nature of humanity is to believe that they are an exception. But Albert Camus and absurdism prove otherwise. One key factor of absurdism is the fact that things happen arbitrarily, with no divine or discernable purpose whatsoever, and no matter how normal or special you think you are, you are not free from the desires of fate. Throughout The Plague, Camus emphasizes how normal the town is and provides no explanation of how or why the plague came upon Oran, which displays the absurdity of the situation. Repeatedly throughout th...

 In these first two parts I think Dr. Rieux points out something extremely important. Something that most definitely relates to American and European people today. The doctor talks about how even though wars and diseases have plagued mankind for millennia, the average person never expects to be affected by a disease or become a victim of war. Instead, they go about their daily business unconsciously assuming that everything will always be as it is and nothing will ever change. Is that not exactly how the American people are right now? Considering Russia's impending invasion of Ukraine, we could possibly be on the brink of WWIII, and yet most Americans are unaware. Most of us would rather go about our daily business than wake up to the fact that tomorrow could be entirely different. Our eyes could close on the world that we know tonight and then witness a world of destruction, disease, death, and devastation tomorrow morning. How much suffering must man endure to finally wake up to ...

     To say that Rieux, Tarrou, and the sanitary groups are not heroes is a significant statement. They are some of the few people on the front lines, as we say, fighting the plague. Their mindset was that they must put up a fight against the plague and to save the greatest number of people from death. Arguably, this is heroic. They are soldiers in this war. Yet, the narrator states, "There was nothing admirable about this attitude; it was merely logical" (Camus 133). Rieux seems to share this same view. He does not see himself as a hero. He says to Rambert, "...there's no question of heroism in all this. It's a matter of common decency" (163). To say that Rieux and the rest of the individuals who are actively fighting against the plague are not heroes, but rather, the common, lowers their status but also, significantly raises the moral standards. If it is common decency rather than heroism to fight against the plague, what do we call those who do not? What ...

     The introduction to the town of Oran in the beginning of The Plague  describes a place that is bleak and boring. The geography and climate of the town certainly does not help things out but the people is usually the one who determines the atmosphere of a place. The people who live in Oran very much make the place boring and uneventful. Their entire life in devoted to work and making money. The only time the have anything remotely close to fun in on the weekend when they don’t work. I would be willing to bet that if they could work on weekends they would.       This kind of lifestyle in Oran is one that I would die in. Sure I do like making money, but I do not want my whole life to be about making the largest possible paycheck I can. I want to have fun and do what I want to do outside of my job. I want to have hobbies and hang out with friends. The money I do make from the job I will have will be used to have fun and not to just stock pile in ...

The "Plague" is a book that I could talk about for a long time. Where to begin? The story so far has had no end to deaths, rats, depression, panic, hopelessness, and all manner of apocalyptic themes. Yet, there is one aspect of the story that comes to mind that I would like to discuss. This is the effect news, particularly hearsay, has on people. The book's story truly begins on page seven, when Dr. Rieux tells M. Michel about the dead rat. The word used on page seven is "news".  M. Michel has disbelief that there even was a rat. He believes his own stubborn will. However, things escalate quickly, and go from bad to worse. There is more rats and as they spread so does the news. Hearsay is a powerful force in the story. Everyone from Dr. Rieux's patients to the townspeople are talking about what is happening. On page ten Dr. Rieuex finds the rats to be of "great topic" around the town. This led me to wonder what effect does news have on its receiver...

     In Albert Camus's The Plague , one character in particular interests me. That would have to be the journalist, Rambert. Rambert is a man stuck inside the cite of Oran during the events of the plague, desperately trying to get out to his woman in France. This man is so desperate to get out, he is willing to possibly bring the disease out of the town and to break the law in order to be with the woman he loves. When speaking of this with the doctor, Rambert explains how " we- mankind- have lost the capacity for love." (Camus, pg 163). Rieux tells Rambert he is not wrong for wishing to go to his loved one after Rambert claims he is possibly wrong for putting love first. Rambert must really love this woman if he is willing to do anything to be with her again, since he continues to go through this endless cycle of meeting with men who claim to be able to get him out. If they actually will get him out remains to be seen.      Ramberts words of claim...

Frost's poem "Fire and Ice" talks about how the world might end. Some people wish it to end in fire, and others hope the world would end in ice. I thought this was an interesting thing to muld over. Frost sides with the idea for the world to burn in flames. Would I wish for the world to die in the hands of ice or fire? Fire can consume slowly or quickly, but it will most likely always be quicker than a death by ice. I can't forget that people can theoretically survive the ice age, so the ice that kills the world must be worse. I guess I side with Frost. It is a close call, but I believe fire would be more merciful of a death than starvation and isolation in the cold.