Tarrou identifies the plague with people s propensity to rationalise killing others for. Jean tarrou jean tarrou is the author of the account that dr. As an outsider, his observations on oran society are more objective than those of. Jean tarrou as the only hero on the plague by albert camus. All that rieux and his compatriots can do is try to make the deaths as. It is through rieux s eyes that we witness the horrifying pestilence that first kills the rats and then the humans. Tarrou is a central character in the plague, because it is he who organizes the volunteer sanitary teams, which he does because he believes it to be his moral duty. The plague by albert camus tells the story of an algerian city called oran that, during the 40s, falls under bubonic plague. Tarrou the plagues only hero free coursework from essay.
Tarrou simply disliked the idea of death, as a fervent opponent of capital punishment, he did not want to be a carrier of the plague and identified it with the guilt with each member of the society shared in death penalty. After watching the death of an innocent child, paneloux s faith. In the thought and art of albert camus, thomas hanna writesthe plague is evil and sin is giving in to this evil. The nobel prizewinning albert camus, who died in 1960, could not have known how grimly current his existentialist novel of epidemic and death would remain. Many will also agree that, among his novels, the plague is possibly the. The plague characters from litcharts the creators of sparknotes. Ramberts wife comes from paris to meet him in oran. So even in the beginning we see, at least on tarrou s side, a connection as well as an interest.
And, indeed, as he listened to the cries of joy rising from the town, rieux remembered. Grand, who has made no progress on his book, is one of the helpers. While everyone is celebrating the plagues recession, tarrou, along with rieux and rambert, cant help but recognize all those who are still grieving. More ambitious than letranger, the first novel that made his reputation, and more accessible than his later writings, the plague is the book by which camus is known to millions of readers. Get everything you need to know about jean tarrou in the plague. Grand, rambert, and paneloux are all different men afterward.
Free monkeynotes study guide summarythe plague by albert. He and rieux do not essentially change during the siege. The characters in the book, ranging from doctors to vacationers to fugitives, all help to show the effects the plague has on a populace. Buy a cheap copy of the plague book by albert camus. From this point onwards tarrou s entries deal in some detail with the curious fever that was causing much anxiety among the public. Tarrou falls in with deucalion and the worms in god s garden as an example of the cataracts of heaven. The old spaniard inquires after tarrou and, hearing of the man s death, says that tarrou was a guy who knew what he wanted. But as i have now, belatedly, discovered there s no substitute for finally sitting down and reading the 1947 novel the plague, by albert camus. The plague s frightfulness is largely due to the approximately 50 million people it reportedly killed in the 14th century, the infamous black death that decimated large swaths of the world s population centers and left a lasting mark on human consciousness. Eventually rieux and tarrou become close read full character analysis. Rieux is unable to determine whether he died of the plague or some other illness.
Rieux himself cares for tarrou, rieux tells tarrou exactly how tarrou s condition is progressing, and during tarrou s last moments, rieux s eyes flooded with tears, symbolic of their. In the plague, tarrou thinks and thinks and thinks, chewing endlessly over the nature of moral choice. Forever changed by the experience, tarrou tells rieux that we must keep an unending watch on our own selves and our words. Tarrou reminds him that any struggle against death is ultimately futile, but rieux says that that. Rieuxs discovering a dead rat and a crotchety concierges indignant and comic fussings and it ends with a total of several thousands of dead rats, plus the plagues first death m. According to the plot of the story, camus provided the detailed description of tarrou, a unique character of the plague.
The plague, an allegory of the german occupation of france and an. When the gates open in february, the incoming trains are packed. This list of books about the plague is sponsored by the last hours by minette walter when the black death enters england in 48, no one knows what manner of sickness it is. Tarrou is vacationing in oran when the epidemic requires a total quarantine of the city. Rieux uses to give greater texture to his chronicle of the plague. Tarrou, the tourist who is also stuck in town, asks dr. Even in the face of certain death, they maintain their true friendship. Set in an ordinary seaside town in camus native algeria, then a colonial french territory, the book documents a 10month period during which the bubonic plague an extremely contagious, fatal diseaseexacts a high death toll and robs the town s residents of any semblance of a normal life.
Like camus, he is a chain smoker and greatly enjoys swimming in the sea, also a pleasure of rieuxs. In tarrou, camus invested a more developed exposition of his moral thinking. A detailed description of the plague characters and their importance the plague by albert camus of the book, with both his wife and his friend tarrou dead, rieux s conclusion is that humans cannot understand suffering, only work to fight it jean tarrou. A wanderer who comes innocuously to oran, he stays to help rieux battle the plague and becomes its last victim. Other readers will always be interested in your opinion of the books youve read.
At this point, tarrou s journal entries start to get a little erratic. Deeply convinced that his lawyerfather was wrong to demand the death sentence for a criminal, and later disillusioned when his revolutionary party guns down former heads of state, tarrou believes man is too frequently a party to murder. Is the plague by albert camus an existentialist book. Tarrou s diary is significant because he not only notes characters and events, but also his philosophical reactions to the plague. Really, all that was to be conveyed was the banality of the town s appearance and of life in it.
Together, they overcome obstacles, hardships, together fighting against the plague. It is rieux who treats the first victim of plague and first uses the word plague to describe the disease. Each of us has the plague within him, tarrou says, so we must keep endless watch on ourselves lest in a careless moment we breathe in somebody s face. The character of jean tarrou in the plague from litcharts the. Watching his father argue for the death penalty, tarrou was shocked by the contrast between the man of flesh and blood sitting in the dock and the euphemisms filling his father s closing argument. It will then be obvious what discomfort attends death, even modern death, when it waylays you under such conditions in a dry place. The plague s first chapter is a rather neat, concise package of setting and background, and chapter 2 is, in a sense, another such block of writing, somewhat like a second solid step taken into the novel, but with a difference. In selfisolation with the plague thr blog blogs the. Rieux, who will become a close friend of tarrou s, has the depth to appreciate his moral insights and to engage in dialogue with him on the meaning of these gruesome deaths. Even father paneloux, who believes that a priest can have no friends and that the plague has been sent by god as a punishment, contributes his share to the fight against the plague by joining tarrou s team. Rieux receives a telegram reporting his wifes death. Did you know that in the black death, some medieval europeans had orgies in. The cause of his death is never confirmed but understood symbolically as the plague. If you enjoy this book, i suggest a year of wonders by geraldine brooks a great story about a young woman helping those in her village to stay alive during the plague and the doomsday book by connie willis this has a similar broad storyline to the plague tales, but it s actually a time travel book, with someone from the present going back to.
The character of jean tarrou in the plague from litcharts. Compare this to tarrou s oneword answer when he s first called on to explain why he is also devoting himself to fighting the plague. Deeply convinced that his lawyerfather was wrong to demand the death. The novel is believed to be based on the cholera epidemic that killed a large percentage of oran s population in 1849 following french colonization, but the novel is placed in the 1940s. But while these talks were going on, the weather changed for the worse. Through tarrou, camus shows how to heroically deal with death. Bernard rieux, the narrator in albert camus s the plague, is a surgeon in the algerian city of oran, a serious, honest, and conscientious man with a rich but subdued sensibility. The plague cliffsnotes study guides book summaries.
The shadow of the thenstillrecent holocaust darkens the plague s pages. In a commercial port in algiers, a disease appears, as if. As an outsider, his observations on oran society are more objective than those of a citizen of the city. Chapter i is written in a sumup style by a narrator who slips us occasional asides throughout his short discourse. Then there is tarrou, an observer and incorrigible overthinker, the one. Whether youve loved the book or not, if you give your honest and detailed thoughts then people will find new books that are right for them. Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read. Fear grips the people as they come to believe that the plague is a punishment for wickedness. These somewhat haphazard observations may give a fair idea of what our town is like. The reason for his uniqueness is the fact that he was the only person who referred to an inner plague and demonstrated his spoilt nature to everyone around him. The plague marks a significant change in camus view of ethics, and life itself, from the stranger. Tarrou has a similar belief in social responsibility as rieux does, but tarrou is more philosophical than the doctor, often musing about sainthood, the death penalty, and the absurdity of life. These detailed observations are so completely objective that they do not always even distinguish between information that is important and irrelevant. Albert camus the plague, read in quarantine for the first time, warns us.
It has never been out of print and was established as a classic of world literature even before its author s untimely death in a car accident in january 1960. Some books are so venerated, so sacralized, they are almost forbidding to the touch. In the end, all he can say is that in all instances he will side with the victim. But toward the end of the book, when rieux asks him what he thinks the way to peace is, tarrou replies that he thinks it s the path of sympathy, which suggests that maybe he s. Camus, then, is showing how different people react to death. For tarrou who, as a boy, was permanently marked by witnessing his father, a judge, sentence a man to death the plague doubles as a kind of abstraction. Rambert finds himself greatly changed by the plague. Each link in this chain of human solidarity finds strength to fight the plague by joining with others.
Jean tarrou, a visitor to oran who is trapped there when the plague begins, enriches dr. Rieux s help in finding volunteers to fight the plague. Tarrou s death is perhaps the strongest example the plague puts forward of the irrational nature of suffering and the indifference of death to circumstance. Tarrou forms the volunteer antiplague effort and works just as hard as dr. Also, after the hotel tarrou is staying at is turned into a hospital for plague victims tarrou moves in with rieux, it s mentioned in one sentence and spoken as if it would be the most natural thing in the world.
Essays and criticism on albert camus the plague critical essays. But the plague couldnt be written now, not the way it is and this i think dates it to a degree that differs from other studies in terrorism joseph conrad s the secret agent or dostoevsky s. He always spoke to say something, and never just talked for talking s sake. The plague characters from litcharts the creators of. Slowly, the authorities begin to realize the cause of the rats death has spread to humans and they identify it as bubonic plague.
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