Here is some more truth. the most important truth in your life at this time, in form of a book reaction of Albert Camus, The Plague. What I am doing is placing truth in forms of allegorys-An extended metaphor. Meaning that it is us, Americans in the midst of a plague. At no period in American history has democracy been in such peril or possibility of totalitarianism as real. Our way of life is over.Our children will never have the standard of living we had. This is a bleak future. This is a reality and truth. We live in an Empire of Illusion, this is our plague. Our nation is in the throws of an epidemic of narcissistic and borderline pathology. The worse reality becomes, the less beleaguered population wants to hear about it , and the more it distracts itself with squalid pseudo-events of celebrity gossip, breakdowns, and trivia. The most ominous cultural divide lies between those who chase after these manufactured illusions, and those who puncture the illusion and confront reality. More than the divides of race, class, or gender, more than rural or urban, believer or nonbeliever, red state or blue state, our culture has been carved up into radically distinct, unbridgeable, and antagonistic entities that no longer speak the same language and cannot communicate. This divide between a literate, marginalized minority and those who have been consumed by an illiterate mass culture. This is the context spoon feed before you read about your life! By providing it this way it provides a more contextual schema and relationship. The book would be better, but most Americans do not read anything longer than 3-5 minutes. Book Reaction The Plague By Albert Camus By Mark Miller This is gripping story of human survival and resilience in the face of an unseen enemy. It is through the presentation of a catastrophic event and how it expresses itself through the impressions, behaviors, and psyche of the towns people. As the plague slowly envelopes the town early warning signs, which are quite apparent and evident, go unseen and unnoticed. Only Dr. Rieux, our protagonist, sees and feels this impending doom coming over the horizon. Denial and ignorance can be correlated with poison, not unlike the plague itself. As in all cases with the over use of negative defense mechanisms there comes a point when their efficacy breaks down in the face of confronting consequences that break all conventions of normalcy. Thus, the people of the town are forced into constructing concrete illusions of everyday normalcy to forget the reality of their inescapable surrounding. Distraction is displacement from disorder. And when the gates of the town are shut and no one is allowed to enter or leave they psychological effect associated with exile. Separation,despair, and alienation. It is at this point in the story which I can can see the analogy with the Holocaust and the exile of the Jews. A sudden desperation appears over the towns people like a black cloud of permanence. They are in fact cut off from the rest of the world. Uncertainty is a form of psychological torture. This grave horror of hopelessness is felt intimately as the dead or dying are their close friends and family members. Isolation, detachment, suspicion,and despondency became staple forms of alleviating stress. By keeping distance from others they can create an emotional distance by eliminating any reminders of this devastating reality. But this too has its own form of pathological symptoms. They contrive themselves never to think of the problematic day. Future and past blend together to further themselves farther from hope, which at this point is the thing needed the most. They are is a state defined as fatalism. Their imaginations now hostile to the past, impatient to the present, and cheated of the future. In effect like ghosts shadows, for even ghosts conjure up some form of memory of a living past. The towns peoples lives become a stand by waiting game. Complacent for a visit from an unforeseeable and unknowable phantom. The substance of the story lies within the facet of the protagonists determination and will to confront death and chaos, in spite of the towns inhabitants seclusion and isolation. Which in this case would be ta general norm of behavior; to distract thyself from the fatal conditions around you by disillusionment. This is how the townspeople habituate to it, by turning away from it; out of sight out of mind. Our heroes in the story provide a rare human element of courage, heroism, and self-actualization in the face of total collapse and demise. The doctor, is studious, caring, and honest person. He sees through eyes of optimism and works day and night helping the people who are inflicted. He understands the futility of this unknown contagion that kills exponentially, but never gives up hope on pursuing a vaccine that will eventually rid the town of the infestation. The doctor consults frequently with a man named, Tarrou, who is quite observant and intelligent. He had visited the town before the plague and the exile of the town, as he does every spring to write his journal about qualities of characters he meets. His writing is insolently based on his subjective viewpoint and the judgments he applies are implied with negative connotations. The character is presented as a obstinate, self-centered, and cynical. At times even cruel when every morning he sets a trap for cats below his terrace only to spit on them. But as we learn through circumstance and fate fortuitous characteristics evolve and flourish. Thus, Tarrou true nature is unprotected by the shades of masks we lie behind, with his truth exposed we begin change our perception of him as a heartfelt and compassionate “being” . This is one of the lesson of story in that it takes some kind of situational catastrophe to find out who you and what you really are. What is the thing inside you that motivates you to keep going when the future and past have no relevance. At the peak of the epidemic, Tarrau, who had now been part of the emergency response team assisting Dr.Rieux, requests a meeting with Dr. Rieux. Tarrou first question to the Doctor was if they were friends? And did he realize he never tried to find out anything out Tarrau. Before the Doctor can answer, Tarrau reveals that he has had the plague long before coming to this town. The plague of injustice, cruelty, and unsympathetic. When he was young he felt a certain innocence about himself until his father, a Prosecuting attorney, took him to an execution of a criminal. This event had changed his life forever. He thought he was to blame for what he called “murder”, and could not forgive himself or change the outcomes of these events. So he became an agitator, thus by fighting the established order he would be fighting against murder to find redemption. Consequently, it is through irony that the insignificant becomes significant, because you never know who will be the one to step up and take charge. The isolated and introverted could now rise to action. I do not believe that anyone can consciously chooses to be a hero, it comes from deep within, and only during an event of crisis will you surely know. There are certain events in a persons life that occur which leave long lasting contextual effects of meaning. Whether a person is consciously aware of this is irrelevant. Memories are impermanent as they are reinvented , altered by novel experiences, new situations, and change. Furthermore, memories can be distorted by emotional liability. However, it is within the contextual significance of memories that provide our linear and consistent selves making the person who we are today. Tarrau cannot run and hide forever from him self, he is stuck with himself, and through the apparent situation at hand could possibly find redemption and undue his perception of perpetrating murder. The heart of the story lies within the relationship between the Doctor and Tarrau, and as Tarrau eventually succumbs to infection from the plague shows his verisimilitude. He realizes that we all have the plague, and I have lost my peace. He will forever try to find meaning and understanding in it, but those questions can never be answered for there is no complete answer that would satisfy him. Tarrau states, “ I only know that one must do what one can do to cease being plague stricken, and thats the only way we can hope for some peace or, failing that, a decent death.” He also implies that all the trouble of mankind spring from our failure to use plain, clear-cut language. As Tarrau dies from the plague he finds no meaning or understanding to his past trauma. But in his last entry in his journal he writes, “ There can be to peace without hope.” The Doctor contemplates on what had Tarrau won. No more than the experience of having know the plague and remembering it, of having know friendship and remembering it, of knowing affection. So basically all a man can win is knowledge and memories. In conclusion, it has no importance whether such things have meaning or have no meaning: all we need to consider is the answer given to mens hope. Where is the answer to mens hope? It lies in those who cling onto the littlest reward; being reunited with a loved one, returning home some day, seeing the sky without a mind full of anxiety, proving to yourself of your courage and bravery. But for others who aspired beyond and above the human individual towards something they could not even imagine, there had been no answer. What the Dr. Rieux learned in the time of pestilence was that there are more things to admire in men that to despise.
Posted on: Tue, 11 Mar 2014 05:10:34 +0000
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