Covid and The Plague
My first impression of The Plague (before reading the book of course) was that it was going to discuss an incredibly different scenario than the modern-day quarantine. The modern knowledge of medicine, the technology we have, and the biological makeup of each disease is so different, I thought I would get a completely different perspective. For some reason, it conveys much more similar conditions than I thought.
I think this parallel phenomenon can mainly be attributed to how the governing body had handled the plague over time. Dr. Rieux and the medical board had warned the governing body and political leaders, just like the United States had in the early stages of Covid. Yet, most chose to ignore it, and suppress it's spread through the media. They downplayed the disease much like the US did, and when they declared it as a social threat, it was already too late. The disease had spread extremely quickly, resulting in disastrous effects on the town, just like it did these past months.
Despite our use of online technology that is able to differentiate us from the town population in the book, we still have the similar feeling of separation. I agree that it is definitely not the same, as we can transport words and even facial expressions across technology unlike them. However, I think that the basic principle that makes us human, is our interactions in person. People still have the same longing of meeting their friends and loved ones in person, even to the point of making exceptions for themselves (as exemplified by Rambert).
Of course, the differences are clear. Bubonic Plague has a much higher death rate than Covid. It is also possibly the reason that many people in the nation are downplaying its danger. The Plague brings up an interesting change in setting however, as people start to become very fearful and careful of each other. It shows that perhaps, we as a community have to treat Covid as like a plague, if we want it to decrease and disappear.
I was also shocked at just how similar our current situation is to the Oran plague outbreak. Certain passages and quotes in the novel regarding how the populace reacted--the mutual distrust, the feeling of exile, the mundanity of the communications by telegram--seemed almost eerily familiar.
ReplyDeleteI was also surprised that Camus perfectly depicted what it is like to live during a pandemic/epidemic, though he never truly lived through one. He nailed the human psychology part of it. However, one prominent difference between how we are handling COVID and how Oran is handling the Plague, is that in Oran, people are still going to the theatre, cafes, restaurants, etc. There are no evident restrictions on daily activity in Oran except for that everyone must stay within Oran. This was shocking to me, especially because as you mentioned, Plague is far deadlier and people already knew about its repercussions (whereas we knew nothing of COVID when it started).
ReplyDeleteI agree with Ariana in that there are some very relevant differences between our personal situation and the situation in The Plague, but just to help your point even further, America's current administration's response to Covid, as well as China's, we're still lacking in efficiency. This is similar to how slow the officials in the book were to announce that something was wrong, even after the appearance of the rats. Granted the civilians in both the book and in our current situation are certainly to blame in their/our failure in efforts to keep the disease(s) contained (as seen in the amount of people trying to escape Oran).
ReplyDeleteWhat got me most was the line about people looking back and thinking that they didn't realize how long they were saying goodbye for. On the last day of school I didn't really try to say goodbye to everyone because I thought we'd be back soon, and regretted that. Separation longer than anyone thought it'd be. It's crazy how well he wrote about that stuff
ReplyDeleteWhat I'm starting to wonder is if the ending of this book will also be a prophecy of what will happen. He seems to have predicted how people reacted to the plague at first, so I wonder if his predictions for what will happen when it ends are true too. One of the main things he mentioned was that people celebrated like crazy, despite the fact that they didn't really win: the plague could spend years dormant and appear again later. I wonder how quickly we will transition back into normal life. Maybe a vaccine will be created and that will cause a drop in cases just like the drops in the book?
ReplyDeleteWith an event like this I'm not sure life will ever really go back to completely normal, even if it does I feel like it has left its mark. Even if covid is mostly gone there would be more distrust between groups of people. But at this point I'm starting to wonder if we will ever reach the same unity that was in the Plague.
DeleteYeah I was surprised with how many things Camus got accurate. The description of the beginning of the epidemic was surprisingly accurate in many ways which is really surprising considering Camus didn't go through an epidemic. There were some differences but a lot of those are due to living in different time periods (like technology is a big difference in our case). One big difference was the lack of social distancing and masks. There is quarantining, but actual social distancing or mask wearing wasn't present which kind of surprised me at first just because of how all the other elements are so similar to our situation.
ReplyDeleteI was also surprised at the accuracy of this book when describing a society in a plague-state. Personally, this made me think about human nature and how it hasn't really changed as much as we thought it might've since the plague. Even though our surroundings, technology, and education has drastically changed, our actions and reactions are very similar to what Camus described in The Plague.
ReplyDeleteThe parallels are frankly frightening to our current time. It seems crazy that the stuff of books and movies has become our current reality, however, much like Rieux or maybe even Cottard (lol) we have to find a way to get through it.
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