How will the pandemic shape us? Camus’ The Plague
“Everybody knows that pestilences have a way of recurring in the world; yet somehow we find it hard to believe in ones that crash down on our heads from a blue sky. There have been as many plagues as wars in history; yet always plagues and wars take people equally by surprise.”- Camus’ The Plague
Students from across the US registered for the Premise conversation-style course on Camus’ The Plague. Participants entered the reading and discussion with a wide variety of academic backgrounds and experiences with the author and this range of perspectives deepened the conversation. Prior experience with an author, genre, or philosophy is never expected at Premise- All are welcome and encouraged to participate!
How do we make sense of the impact of Covid-19 on our lives and our world?
How will the pandemic shape us for years to come?
A group of Premise students came together on Sunday, September 19 from 4:00-5:30 PST to dig into Albert Camus’ 1947 novel The Plague. The characters in the novel struggle to find meaning and purpose in the fictionalized plague that struck Oran, Algeria. Our Premise discussion centered on the parallels and contrasts between our real-time experience living through pandemic with those of Dr. Rieux, Grand, and Rambert (characters in the novel).
Sharing our experience living through Covid-19:
Premise participants talked about the differences between being lonely and being alone throughout the past year. Students shared that they’ve felt chapters of alienation and anonymity. Some participants were able to make space for reinvention and even discovered the unexpected contentment of solitude brought on by lockdown during Covid-19. We talked about how our lives have swung from the ordinary to the extraordinary and how the unthinkable has started to feel ordinary.
Premise Participant Conversation Questions
Participants brought questions to the discussion that grew out of their reading. The facilitator used the questions to guide and focus the group conversation.
What were the differences between the town pre-plague and the town post-plague?
How can we understand disruptive experience while living through it?
Why did people in the book have a tendency not to express their love for loved ones openly? They were holding back, even when time may be running out.
How does the Plague reflect our experience with COVID, and whether Camus has captured the human condition accurately with the view of the current situation?
Was life in Oran really so shallow and meaningless before the plague? Those observations did not reflect the "objectivity" that the narrator claimed to present.
Does a drastic change of context (like a plague) challenge people to think more consciously about the meaning of life?
Is absurdism really a whole philosophy, or just the Judeo-Christian ethic with God chopped off and "absurdity" substituted for "brokenness"?
Learn More About The Plague and Albert Camus
Premise students can choose to learn more by checking out some of these hand-picked resources.
Learn about Camus’ life and writings
Brief explanation of The Plague and Absurdism (video), School of Life (April 2020)
Camus’ Nobel Prize for Literature (1957) and his speech accepting the award (“Each generation doubtless feels called upon to reform the world. Mine knows that it will not reform it, but its task is perhaps even greater. It consists in preventing the world from destroying itself.”)
What Camus’ The Plague can teach us about the Covid-19 pandemic, Vox (July 22, 2020)
Camus on the Coronavirus (“He reminds us that suffering is random, and that is the kindest thing one can say about it.”), NYT (March 2020) and Looking at Albert Camus’s “The Plague”, NYT (May 2020)
How Have I Not Read This? (Conversation with modern authors about The Plague, May 2020)
