Crafting Creative Concepts with Charlotte

 Something that we talked about a bit right at the beginning of our reading of  The Plague  (and in class today) was Camus' intention to make this book an allegory of the Nazi occupation of Europe in World War II. As someone who has read extensively about the Nazis' role in WWII, particularly the Holocaust, I was excited for Camus to provide a thought-provoking parallel. However, I was thoroughly disappointed by the direction in which Camus took this parallel. And while The Plague  is a fascinating novel through which to examine human nature and deadly plagues, it is inaccurate and even offensive as a WWII metaphor. First of all, fascism is rooted in extreme government control. In The Plague , the government is very neutral and rational, eliminating this most basic and foundational piece of fascism. Furthermore, in the novel everybody is unified against the plague, which disrupts the parallel between medical teams and resistance groups, since resistance groups were a...

Today in class, we talked a lot about how Camus establishes the setting for The Plague . To be honest, a lot of the first section of this book blended together for me - the middle-class French men with unmemorable names, the rats (and then humans) gruesomely dying in the streets, the conversations among medical professionals - many of the finer details are difficult for me to recall. However, the description of Oran stuck with me. The narrator describes one of the blandest and ugliest towns I have ever imagined, with not very nice humans living in it.  At first, I thought it was strange that Camus had selected such a boring setting for his book. Then I realized how intentional it was, and how important. Camus is using the story of the plague as a medium through which to analyze fascism and the Nazis. That is his primary focus, and in order to fully focus on the plague he needs to eliminate all distractions (e.g. a noteworthy setting). He is isolating the variable by placing it in a...