The Plagues

"We know evil exists. We have established that fact beyond all doubt. The important question is: `Is there reason to hope?" Then Camus quoted the words of Dr. Rieux in The Plague:

Since the order of the world is shaped by death, mightn't it be better for God if we refuse to believe in Him and struggle with all our might against death without raising our eyes toward the heaven where He sits in silence.

"You know these lines of The Plague.... I have quoted them to you before, but do you know what I had in mind when I wrote them?"

"My impression was that you were concentrating on the suffering of the innocent. One would expect fear and terror in Oran in the face of the plague, but instead we find only longing for loved ones. As you said, `Reunion is only the exception and happiness only an accident that has lasted.'"

Camus seemed amused by my interpretation. I wondered if I had perhaps given the wrong answer, so I asked, "How would you describe what you were trying to say?"

"I was trying to say that there are at least three responses humanity can make to the plagues of human experience. First, a man may commit philosophical or physical suicide. That is, a person may simply yield to the sheer impossibility of the situation. Second, he may develop a nihilistic posture, characterized by the asthmatic old Spaniard who spends his days transferring dried beans from one pot to the other. (That alternative doesn't make life any better or any worse.) Last, and possibly most important, I tried to present the alternative of revolt, represented by the sanitation squads who go out and bury the dead bodies. Even around the collective funeral pyres, man responds to the inner flame of comradeship in the service of human survival.

"To me this is all there is – simply going on living. The only hope that I can offer is simply to live. Repetition, grilling each day with the pure act of living. Starting over again until death, that is all there is. Yet, Howard, I sense deep within that something is missing. Is there more?"

Howard Mumma, in Albert Camus and the Minister (2000)