THE EXTREME AND THE PLAUSIBLE
It would seem, therefore, to be a mistake to give any such uni–
linear interpretation of this novel as that which has made it an al–
legory of the Nazi occupation of France. Like the traditional myth-form
of which
it
is an instance,
The Plague
is multivalent, since its most gen–
eral meaning is simply the brute challenge of existence.
Nevertheless, Camus insists, too openly perhaps, that he intends
his story as an allegory, almost a fable and moral lesson. We should
observe, then, his variants in the universal form he has chosen.
"He knew that the tale he had to tell could not be one of a final
victory... . The plague bacillus never dies or disappears for good." The
cycle of the trial and the purgation must be endlessly repeated; "they
must set their shoulders to the wheel again"; or, like Sisyphus, whom
Camus earlier selected, descend the hill always once more to retrieve
the stpne which will never come to rest on the summit. This, however,
is not private. It is primarily in the Christian version of the myth that
victory is final. Persephone, Tammuz, Orpheus, Osiris, must return
every year; even Odysseus hints, at the end, that his journey will have to
begin again; and the sun, rising triumphant, will always sink once more
through bloody clouds into the darkness.
It is less usual that even in the victory of the single cycle there is
no assurance that the hero's acts have been efficacious. The plague comes
unsuspected, through no man's agency, out of the unknown. At its
climax, "the plague had swallowed up everything and everyone," and
the combatants had only "the fancy that they were still behaving as
free men and had the power of choice." It recedes at its own good
time and place-"all that could be said was that the disease seemed
to be leaving as unaccountably as it had come."
Still more unusual, directly counter to all variants of the traditional
myth-form, there is no single hero (or semi-hero, since there could
hardly be a full hero if destiny is altogether implacable) . Dr. Rieux, who
is identified with the narrator, comes closest, but he does not sufficiently
outshine Tarrou, Rambert, Dr. Castel, or even Joseph Grand and
Father Paneloux.
As there is no single hero, there is no unified attitude toward the
plague, and no unique lesson to be drawn. Only Cottard is rejected:
because he was glad of the plague ,and did not fight it (even though the
fight is doubtless vain) but exploited it for his own interests. "His only
real crime is that of having in his heart approved of something that
killed off men, women, and children. I can understand the rest, but for
that
I am obliged to pardon
hi~."
But when Rambert asks Rieux,
"Maybe I'm all wrong in putting love first," Rieux replies "vehemently,"
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