As a doctor, Rier is an atheist and disagrees with Father Panalu's view on collective punishment. In his view, if God can do anything, he doesn't have to treat people anymore, but let God treat people. Camus expressed his feelings through Dr. Leo's firm words: "I don't think I'm interested in being a hero or a saint." I am interested in becoming a person. "

Moreover, he clearly realized that in the process of human struggle against diseases, human victory is always temporary, and this plague means successive failures for him. Although he knew it was a constant struggle against failure, Dr. Rier was still very busy, working 20 hours a day. He firmly believes that "only a madman, a blind man or a coward will give in to the plague when they see the suffering and pain it brings to people."

He always pays attention to human health, abides by the professional ethics of doctors, and always adheres to the duty of safeguarding human life and health, which truly embodies the noble feelings of not being for fame and fortune and being willing to sacrifice. The author reveals the doctor's last professional footnote through the mouth of Dr. Rieux, that is, "Despite personal pain, we should constantly resist terrible disasters and their weapons to punish evil and promote good, but people can't be saints and can't tolerate disasters, so we should strive to be good doctors."

Then, the mother's "quietness" became Leo's spiritual pillar against the plague. When her mother said that the plague was no big deal, riegel agreed with her and felt that "with her, everything seemed to be solved". In the face of absurdity, the most important thing is to admit and face up to absurdity. Secondly, the mother's "modesty" and "conciseness" taught Rieu a down-to-earth way to resist the plague. In the novel, Rier does not pin his hopes on the future and God, but devotes himself to the immediate work: "I don't know what is waiting for me, and I don't know what will happen after all this is over. For the time being, some patients must receive treatment. "

Leo's mother

There is no mention of Rieu's father in the novel. During the whole plague, only his mother lived with Rieu. The most prominent feature of the old Eritrean woman is her silence, modesty and conciseness. Here, the subtext of "silence", "humility" and "simplicity" is rich: "silence" is the grasp and understanding of the absurd nature of the world: "the old lady can understand everything without thinking", and she "can see through the essence of anything including the plague";

"Modesty" and "conciseness" mean resisting absurd "low-key" on the basis of acknowledging and respecting absurd reality. Face the absurdity, admit the absurdity, while maintaining a modest and low-key attitude, not boasting, and insisting on being down-to-earth. The moment Leah's mother appeared, it was worth pondering. In the novel, in the extraordinary period when the plague just appeared, the arrival of the Eritrean old lady coincided with the right time, which implied that she would become Eritrea's spiritual guide to resist the plague.

Taru

Taru's mother does not appear in the novel, and he is associated with "father". According to Talu's account, his father was a procurator-general and was "kind by nature". But an experience of hearing a case with his father greatly touched Talu and changed his view of his father. During the trial, the "poor" criminal aroused Taru's deep sympathy. In contrast, the father who is reading the indictment "seems neither kind nor kind", but "full of empty talk" and sentenced the man to death in the name of society.

From this day on, Taru "began to pay attention to justice and death penalty with hatred" and "was shocked to find that his father" participated in many such murders ". Obviously, in Taru's mind, his father, that is, the "Attorney General", has become a metaphor for the death penalty and murder. Taru's hatred of his father is precisely his hatred of the death penalty. Taru not only opposes the death penalty, but also pays attention to the problem of "legal" murder.

In order to oppose the death penalty, Taru began to go into politics, but he found that in the political struggle, it is necessary to "sentence the death penalty" and "legally" sentence, because this is "to realize a world where no one kills people", in other words, for the future happy kingdom, it is necessary to sacrifice the lives of a few people. Finally, Taru realized that he was wrong. He changed from opposing the death penalty and trying to save the victims to a supporter and executioner of legal murder.

Here, Taru expressed his doubts about heroic "save the world" movements such as political struggle and social transformation. In his view, it is a kind of "legal" murder to "eliminate social injustice by hook or by crook" in the social transformation and abandon the present happiness for the future paradise on earth.

Extended data

The period when the idea of plague creation began to brew was 1940 after Paris was occupied by German fascists. Camus had long intended to describe the "terror era" in which fascism devoured thousands of lives like a plague, and to write the disaster of the era through the cruelty of a big whale, just like the novel Moby Dick written by American writer Melville in the19th century.

1942, Camus was transferred from Oran, a hot spot, to Panari 'e, a mountainous area in southern France (later the author named Panalou a Catholic priest in the plague) to recuperate. Soon after, the British and American allied forces landed in Algeria, and the Germans invaded southern France. Camus was temporarily isolated from his family, anxious and lonely. This personal experience made him particularly vivid and touching when describing the situation of Lamber, a reporter in The Plague.

In Camus' view, the French people who were under the fascist autocratic power at that time-except some people engaged in resistance movements-lived a long-term imprisonment life isolated from the outside world, just like the plague epidemic in medieval Europe. In the city of plague, they not only face the threat of death at any time, but also endure the pain of where you will go day and night.

In his diary1942165438+1October1,Camus once compared the rampaging Germans to "like rats". In another diary, he wrote down the situation at that time: "The people of the whole country are enduring a silent life in despair, but they are still expecting …".

It is worth noting that Camus wrote his contemporaries' fears, anxieties, pains, struggles and struggles in the face of a holocaust with meticulous brushstrokes in his novels, especially depicting the great and profound ideological and emotional shock suffered by the French bourgeoisie in the process of experiencing the catastrophe of the Second World War.

Although Camus used to avoid describing French society directly, but took Oran, a Mediterranean coastal city in North Africa, as the place where the plague occurred, it is not difficult for readers to see that it is a microcosm of French society from this city with prosperous commerce, developed material civilization and empty citizens' spiritual enjoyment.