Not the Life for Me // Braylan Stringfellow

     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 a back account somewhere. Or course I would be wise with the money I make and not just blow it all in one place.  What I do not want is to become a robot in the corporate world like these people in Oran are. 

I commented on Samantha’s and Emmetts post

Comments

  1. Emmett BryantFebruary 14, 2022 at 7:46 PM

    I think when you give yourself over to the necessities of life rather than meeting those necessities so you can actually live life, then you've missed the whole point. We meet the necessities so that we can live, not live so that we can meet them.
    -Emmett Bryant

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  2. Abigale BellFebruary 14, 2022 at 10:17 PM

    Hi Braylan! You make a good point that the people of Oran are very much focused on work. I think this was intentional on the author's part. Painting the town in this light makes it a perfect setting for a study of real life in a fictional setting. This mindset seems to be a theme in the story: without work, where is the purpose in life?

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  3. Emily OttsFebruary 14, 2022 at 11:06 PM

    The people of Oran simply work until they die. It's not until a pandemic shuts them in their homes that they stop working. As someone who dreads that, it must be so depressing to live to work, and to only work. Perhaps the quarantine became a much needed break for some of the people.

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