The Plague | Albert Camus
05/08/21 • 10 min
1 Listener
The Plague was published in 1947 and is widely considered as Albert Camus’s most successful novel. It tells the story of a plague epidemic in the Algerian coastal town of Oran, where thousands of rats are found dead all over the city.
Camus’ absurdist philosophy is at the background of the novel. He stresses the powerlessness of the individual to affect his destiny in an indifferent world.
Illness, exile, and separation are themes that were present in Camus’ life and his reflections upon them form a vital counterpoint to the allegory. This makes his description of the plague and the pain of loneliness exceptionally vivid and heartfelt.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⌛ Timestamps (0:00) Introduction (0:53) Part I (3:32) Part II (6:59) Part III (7:25) Part IV (8:58) Part V
The Plague was published in 1947 and is widely considered as Albert Camus’s most successful novel. It tells the story of a plague epidemic in the Algerian coastal town of Oran, where thousands of rats are found dead all over the city.
Camus’ absurdist philosophy is at the background of the novel. He stresses the powerlessness of the individual to affect his destiny in an indifferent world.
Illness, exile, and separation are themes that were present in Camus’ life and his reflections upon them form a vital counterpoint to the allegory. This makes his description of the plague and the pain of loneliness exceptionally vivid and heartfelt.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⌛ Timestamps (0:00) Introduction (0:53) Part I (3:32) Part II (6:59) Part III (7:25) Part IV (8:58) Part V
Previous Episode
The Metamorphosis | Franz Kafka
The Metamorphosis is a book written by Franz Kafka and published in 1915. It has been called one of the seminal works of fiction of the 20th century as well as a classic absurdist fiction novella.
It starts off with one of the most iconic opening lines in literature: “As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous vermin.”
Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis embodies an absurdist tone with ordinary daily concerns (such as being late for work) even after Gregor Samsa's extraordinary transformation into a monstrous vermin. It is an allegory of modern society's alienation and angst. The story mostly takes place in a single confined room.
The cause of Gregor’s transformation is never revealed, and Kafka himself never gave an explanation.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⌛ Timestamps (0:00) Introduction (0:44) Part I (3:38) Part II (6:33) Part III
Next Episode
No Exit | Jean Paul Sartre
No Exit (Huis Clos) is one of Jean Paul Sartre’s most interesting existentialist short stories. The book is the source of one of Sartre’s most celebrated phrases: “Hell is other people”.
Sartre brilliantly emphasises that hell is not so much a specific place, but a state of mind. It is connected with his idea of the Look, which explores the experience of being seen, as we are always under the eyes of others.
The conflict of being a subject (an agent of one’s life) and being an object that other people are observing, alienates us and locks us in a particular kind of being, which in turn deprives us of our freedom, because we are unable to escape the “devouring” gaze of the other.
Sartre illustrates the difficult coexistence of people, as the entire social realm is based on adversarial aspects.
If you like this episode you’ll love
Episode Comments
Generate a badge
Get a badge for your website that links back to this episode
<a href="https://goodpods.com/podcasts/eternalised-141647/the-plague-albert-camus-13546351"> <img src="https://storage.googleapis.com/goodpods-images-bucket/badges/generic-badge-1.svg" alt="listen to the plague | albert camus on goodpods" style="width: 225px" /> </a>
Copy