On the practical side of things, it’s not hard to see where Camus would have gleaned his detailed understanding of the mechanics of the extraordinary situation. From there we watch how the various characters react as they wait for the crisis to abate.įrom the vantage of today, the accuracy of Camus’ depiction of life under epidemic is almost incredibly accurate, both in terms of practical considerations like measures taken to combat the plague and less tangible factors like how those grappling with the circumstance react. It’s not until hospitals are packed and the dead are stacked that plague is declared and the city is locked down. Even once the disease does make the jump from animals to humans, the town’s leadership attempts to minimize and disregard the situation for fear of causing panic and disrupting business.

Coming Down with the Sicknessįor the residents of Oran, the plague’s arrival is marked by a mass die-off of rats, which they chalk up as unusual but unconcerning.

To put that another way, it’s impossible to read The Plague from the vantage point of 2021 without seeing the stark similarities between Camus’ imagined affliction and our all-too-real pandemic, and not merely in terms of sickness. Read it anytime post-March 2020, however, and the philosophical content largely takes a backseat to the simple day-to-day descriptions of what it’s like to live under the threat of epidemic malady - so familiar have they become.

If you had read it in 2019, you’d probably be struck by the keen philosophical insight for which Camus was so renowned.

The plague by albert camus