The Lasting Effects of Plague (and of our epidemic)

 When progressing further into Albert Camus' novel, The Plague, I was genuinely intrigued to learn about the everlasting effects of the plague that citizens of Oran were experiencing after prolonged quarantine, similar to what we face as a global society today. The universal idea that we must abide by these globally agreed on laws to protect ourselves and each other are present in both our lives and the lives of citizens in Oran, and delving into this part of the novel, we can see more similarities emerge from the pages. The idea of being confined alone from loved ones, friends and family alike, has severe, deteriorating mental and emotional impact on how one perseveres. Often times, in the midst of our adapted "quarantine lives" we find ourselves plagued with an awful dull feeling, simply bored out of our minds, which can leave us unmotivated, upset and deprived. I was able to realize that our situation right now is very much similar to the novel in terms of how we are trying our best to deal with everything. That being said, it will definitely be interesting to finish this book and understand how the need to deal with this global outbreak will define and shape the mindsets of the citizens, and likewise, us. 

Wealth, Rats and Humanitarianism - Initial Thoughts

    First impressions of this novel, "The Plague, by Albert Camus" were very different from just about all the novels we read in this course. Notably, what stood out to me was the setting and way of life of the people residing in the city of Oran. The narrator of the book, who is unnamed for now, describes the entirety of the city as bleak and gray, with the citizens visibly having no interest in anything other than individual commerce and wealth. This description of an “ugly town”, and how it “turns it’s back on nature” gives off a hidden metaphorical comparison between the plot of plague and the setting, that the city of Oran is plagued with capitalist ideologies and is consumed by wealth in which there’s only happiness in finding money. 

The main character, Dr. Rieux, is quite different from the other main protagonists we’ve come across in this course. One would be able to describe Dr. Rieux as a sort of humanist and strong believer in knowledge and science as the ways of life. For starters, he’s seemed to pick up on the fact that these rats aren’t just strewn around by kids as most of the people in the town presume, as he’s noticed that there’s blood spurting from their muzzles, and they appear to be sickly in some form. He relies heavily on his analytical judgement in the sense that he is a doctor. As he predicted, the number of dead rats continues to grow until there are heaps of them littering the streets of Oran. Furthermore, when one of his patients falls ill and has unusual swelling around the armpits and groin area, and eventually passes away shortly after, Dr. Rieux knows that there’s some disease spreading through the city. It’s around this point in the book when we are introduced to Raymond Rambert, a journalist who wants to get the scoop on the current growth of deceased rats. After Dr. Rieux inquires on whether he would be able to tell the full truth, Rambert declines and says he is not in a position to do so. Again, this defines Dr. Rieux’s character is truth-based and shortly after declines to provide information to Rambert.

To me, it seems like Dr. Rieux is in a way, out of place in his society, as he tends to think differently, more critically about certain aspects that people face daily, such as the clear foreshadowing that plague has stricken the city. Or the fact that he has more humanist approaches such as being truthful and honesty are values held close to him, while, in the city of Oran, money, capitalism and even cheating your way into that lifestyle seems more prevalent. Altogether, this novel definitely brings some new values and ideas to discuss, and will definitely delve into an interesting read!

Jake and His Insecure Masculinity

 From the beginning of this novel, up until this point, it’s apparent that Jake Barnes has a blatant “shyness” or insecurity of his masculinity, based on various factors within the book. At the beginning of the novel, even before the story begins, we are introduced to Jake’s past, him serving in the war, and sustaining an injury that, implied within the novel, suggests he is unable to have intercourse. This is hard to determine right away from Jake, as his nature is to hint at ideas and scenarios rather than openly discuss them. Moreover, on his insecurity, Lady Brett Ashley’s refusal to enter a relationship with him, due to his injury, severely impacts his presumption about himself, since it means giving up sexual intercourse for her. Furthermore, Jake’s hostility towards Robert Cohn is more than likely founded within his own insufficient feelings. Overall, Jake seems to be heavily affected from his injury and the war, which affects his decisions, beliefs and hopes on topics such as love, morality, etc. , and this is presented multiple times within the novel, as Jake is a bar-wanderer, drinking nights away in Paris. Contrary to first thought, Jake actually recognizes his actions and understands ideas and measures on how to remedy them, as he mentioned to Cohn in Chapter 2, “You can’t get away from yourself by moving from one place to another.” It seems likely that Jake is just unwilling or unable at the time to fix his issues faced in his life, and this could be due to the overall immense stress placed on him for each of the obstacles he faces.

Compare and Contrast Novels

 After reading both The Mezzanine and Mrs. Dalloway, it’s evident that there’s a key similarity between the two: the usage of time and how this conveys elements of the stories of each to us as readers. Taking a look at the use of time, it is noticeable that this factor of literature and how it’s manipulated and shown in both The Mezzanine and Mrs. Dalloway is interesting and develops key ideas and summaries on both of the books we read in class so far. Both novels occur over very short periods of time, The Mezzanine being told over the course of the narrator walking to the mezzanine of his office after lunch and Mrs. Dalloway over one day in Clarissa Dalloway’s everyday life. In both of these pieces of literature, it’s really interesting to understand how an entire novel with plot and detail can be told over such a short period of time. 

    A primary contrast between the two novels must be the perspective(s) of which both novels are using. In the Mezzanine, the narrator, Howie, is able to take in his surroundings and transform them to an extent of using the “white background” trick to implement detail into average, everyday life, making the flow of the novel both bizarre and appealing. Baker’s style is clear and evident in The Mezzanine because of the fact that Howie is the only perspective shown within the novel, thus Baker can manipulate many aspects of Howie’s ideas in a clear and concise manner without mixing up other character’s thoughts and ideas. 

However, in Mrs. Dalloway, there’s a different idea and flow to the novel. Virginia Woolf uses multiple perspectives of each character to provide insight to each person’s perspective on Clarissa Dalloway. While this format may provide a limited amount of heightened detail to be explored, like The Mezzanine, the use of multiple perspectives is also beneficial to the audience to understand the many viewpoints on Clarissa, and allows us as the reader to compare and contrast the lives of other characters within the book. For example, when we are introduced to Septimus, we can easily compare that he, like Clarissa, is not living his life and is consumed by his own inner thoughts about evil in the world around him. Clarissa, on the other hand, has many questions about life, ideas concerning her own and others’ lives around her.  The fact that each of the characters in Mrs. Dalloway have their own lives and thoughts really brings them to life instead of painting them as just background characters or “extras”, like in The Mezzanine as we don’t really get to explore any other character other than Howie. 

Overall, both these novels achieve a great exploration of the key ideas used within them, and each author details this extremely well through the usage of these elements in their literature. 

Interesting "Advances"

 A section I find quite interesting to think about is the sections at the end of Chapter 2 and beginning of Chapter 3, where the narrator talks about "major advances" he's discovered from others. One advance he describes to be "the act of brushing your tongue", which stands out a bit. He mentions that his love interest, L. had always brushed her tongue as well as her teeth, which gets rid of bad breath. To me, when I read this, I thought it was common knowledge as L. does too, since most of the bacteria accumulates on the tongue. However, as Howie further analyzes the idea of "tongue-brushing" and what separates it from regular "tooth-brushing" (which was strictly confined to the teeth and gums in his opinion), it gets the reader to think a bit on why is that, and this thought enlightens Howie so much that he starts brushing his entire mouth including the roof. I also relate to his other advancement, which was cleaning when feeling down. When he discovered that cleaning a room or apartment actually cheers one up, he learned this idea from Sue, his co-worker. I too, find it strangely calming to clean up a mess as it provides one with the sense of small accomplishment and productivity, and usually being productive is known to help the brain produce serotonin and keeps one in a cheerful mood. This also has to do with keeping an organized workspace, as it's usually easier to go about the rest of your day when everything is properly organized and tidied. The notion that Howie has too much fun cleaning is definitely prevalent, as he once described sweeping as "making him wildly cheerful", which I think is a bit too much for such a simple activity, but there's no judgement here. In fact, he adopts daily sweeping into his lifestyle which is a bit odd but at least he's productive!