The Plague

In this short blog, I would like to briefly describe how Camus' philosophical essay Myth of Sisyphus relates to his fictional novel The Plague.

Sisyphus

So, the myth goes like this. Sisyphus has been condemned to a life of infinite labor, repetition, and futility. He spends all of his time and energies rolling a boulder up to the top of the mountain, only for the boulder to fall down, and then he has to repeat the process, again, and again, ad infinitum. Yes, at first glance, this seems like a tragic figure, or a darkly comic figure. Sisyphus's life doesn't seem like one to be coveted. Camus would have to disagree. Instead of these things, Camus writes "The struggle toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy." In Camus' eyes, every human is in a way, Sisyphus. Our lives are just as absurd and quotidian and repetitious as his. Because pushing a rock up a hill for your entire life may seem difficult and tiresome and scary, but it is better than the nightmare of sitting on a boulder at the bottom of the mountain, devoid of hope, and better also than sitting on a boulder at the top of mountain, devoid of any desire.
As this regards to The Plague, I'd argue that the main protagonist, Dr. Rieux embodies this ideal of a "happy Sisyphus." The Plague lasts for what feels like an entire lifetime. Everyday more and more people come to him, looking for help, stricken with plague. Some get better. Most die. Dozens. Hundred. Thousands. Tens of thousands. And through it all, Dr. Rieux never stops trying. His life is in many ways, far more depressing than Sisyphus's. Dr. Rieux is not battling against a boulder, he is battling against death, every hour of everyday.
Camus' essay begins with the phrase "There is only one truly serious philosophical question and that is suicide." And in many ways, this is the question that lies at heart of The Plague as well. The way I see, suicide is another way to describe succumbing to death, letting it win. A Doctor, in many ways, is the opposite of a suicide. He is actively battling against death. This is the basic principle at heart the heart of perhaps all of Camus' work: fuck death.