Part II
- Part 1 ends with the authorities declaring a state of plague and the gates of the city are closed. In part 2, as the isolation and emotional deprivation grow, we notice a group of friends starting to form around the main character, Rieux: Grand (pages 81, 82), Rambert (page 83 & following), and Tarrou (pages 122-130), who will share his own story in part 4 (page 245). On pages 160-164, the narrator shares with the reader a conversation between three of the friends, Rieux, Rambert, and Tarrou.
As you read over these sections ask yourself:
- What draws the three men to Rieux?
- What triggers the conversations?
- What is the nature of their conversations?
- How might their conversations and friendship influence them personally, affect others, and shape the unfolding story?
- What need might they be meeting in each other’s lives?
- Where do you notice Camus’s philosophical ideas coming through?
- There are very few women mentioned in the novel and none play a major role in fighting the plague. Yet, on pages 122-123, the narrator shares a brief, yet intimate moment between Rieux and his mother. As you read over these pages, 1) notice what takes place before and after this scene; 2) notice the narrator’s use of language.
- What do we learn about his mother and their relationship?
- What role might she have played during his formative years? now?
- Why does the narrator choose to insert this brief scene? Why might Camus? (note as well Tarrou’s short notebook entry on Dr. Rieux’s mother on page 116).
- Father Paneloux delivers a sermon claiming to offer an explanation for the plague (94–99). As you read through his sermon, consider the following:
- How does he explain the plague? As a response to human action? As an act of God?
- How does the comparison with the plagues in Egypt from the book of Exodus (Exodus 7–12) function to give the plague meaning in the citizens’ lives?
- What do you think of the comparison between biblical plagues and the plague in Oran?
- What call to action does Paneloux deliver to his plague-stricken congregants?
- Rieux and Tarrou discuss the sermon and their response on pages 125–128. How does their perspective differ from that of the priest?
- In the opening chapter of Part 2, the narrator describes how language began to fail the inhabitants of Oran, particularly in relation to correspondence with the outside world. The narrator describes the telegram, the last reliable “telecommunication” medium: “And since, in practice, the phrases one can use in a telegram are quickly exhausted, long lives passed side by side, or passionate yearnings, soon declined to the exchange of such trite formulas as: “Am well. Always thinking of you. Love.”
Part 1 raised the difficulty for the citizens of Oran of imagining that the plague had really descended; Part 2 now raises the problem of communicating, especially in such a clipped fashion.- What seems to be the novel’s guidance on these matters? Is it best to fall silent? Is it best not to Tweet, to speak in some circumstances?