DRAMATIC LIMITATIONS
It is noteworthy that we do not get any comprehensive presentation of the forces that collaborated with the plague. It is difficult to envisage active support for the plague—however much Cottard may be taken as one who welcomed it and benefited from it—because it is difficult to defend the plague’s reign. This is a key limitation of Camus’s mythic transformation of occupied France.
What, it might be asked, is the material base that facilitated the plague’s entry into Oran, so abrupt and pervasive? It is almost as if a fifth column were already at work within the city, perhaps in the form of authorities who unduly delayed taking the appropriate measures. Where are the representatives of the business establishment who, during the Popular Front, proclaimed, “Better Hitler than Blum”? Where are the internal forces of fascism? The members of Action Francaise? The supporters of a renascent French patriotism and anti-Semitism?
Those who made it impossible for France to come to the aid of the embattled forces of Republican Spain? In short, where is the class struggle? What was the social and class base of the opponents of fascism? From what segments of society did the resistance draw most of its strength? And where was the grand bourgeoisie while the underground network was being developed? Unfortunately, Camus does not address these questions.
By mythologizing the resistance as a drama of the human condition, Camus’s work gained in metaphysical scope and in internal development. But he pays a serious price at the level of historical and theoretical applicability. That is partly the result of his choice of metaphysical symbol. The plague is a microbe, a force of nature that strikes at the human community. But it is not a human force, not even primarily carried by humans. How could human beings identify with and justify its rule as a social strategy? How could anyone offer it as a solution to the drama of the absurd, as a response to the need for moral regeneration, renewed patriotism, and social reconstruction, or as a legitimate way of keeping social order and peace?
Even more, as a transcription of the snuggles of his generation, where in The Plague is the conflict of competing visions of human destiny that Camus so agonizingly transcribed in his Letters to a German Friend ? Where are those Nazis who, believing as Camus himself did, “that this world had no ultimate meaning,” “deduced the idea that everything was equivalent” and that “those who, like us young Germans, are lucky enough to find a meaning in the destiny of our nation must sacrifice everything else”? (RRD, 3). That this was Camus’s position can be gleaned from his own assessment of the novel in 1942:
The Stranger describes the nudity of man in the face of the absurd; The Plague, the profound equivalence of all points of view in face of the same absurd. It is a progress which will become more precise in other works. But in addition, The Plague demonstrates that the absurd teaches nothing (TRN, 1928).
In fact, this early evaluation of the novel’s significance may suggest the source of the mythic symbol.
In sum, this mythic frame does not adequately allow Camus to pose the problem of human evil any more than it does justice to questions of social policy, political opposition and dissent, class conflict, and social antagonisms in general. That Camus sensed this may be seen from the further development of his work. Nevertheless, it is important to underline the extent to which revolt and resistance are shortchanged in The Plague if we are to be able to appreciate both the nature of Camus’s development and the kind of critical scrutiny he was increasingly to face. In this work we are left with only Tarrou’s reminiscences, without any clear sense of the political issues that so fiercely divide equally sincere human beings, leading some to see murder as not only acceptable but often necessary and justifiable.
In his response to Roland Barthes, and earlier to Sartre and Jeanson, Camus failed to pick up the deepest sense of the criticism. He is certainly right when he insists upon the explicit thematic development of his work. “Compared to The Stranger, The Plague does, beyond any possible discussion, represent the transition from an attitude of solitary revolt to the recognition of a community whose struggles must be shared. If there is an evolution from The Stranger to The Plague, it has moved in the direction of solidarity and participation” (LCE, 339). There is, however, another more subtle message that operates at the level of what might be called stylistic metaphysics. Here the commitment at the core of the emerging response to the plague has been so devoid of specific historical and political content—in the service, perhaps, of the mythologized enactment of the human condition—that its message goes little beyond eternal vigilance and mutual respect and solidarity in the face of recurring threats to human living. But where should we look for these threats? Are there no important differences between the dangers of human
evil and natural disaster? Can we not organize our society in such a way as to
minimize the disasters? Are all things eternally equal and equivalent? What is the morality thus suggested, if not that we should cultivate—not our private garden, as with Voltaire—but our collective garden, devoid of the clamors of political action, class conflict, national enmities, and struggles for historical and economic progress? Are we being urged, at least by implication, to accept stoically the limited possibilities for satisfaction in human life—with a small community of friends, ever vigilant against external dangers, but with no sense of the political and economic dangers coming from our fellows, and no suggestion for forestalling these threats? Is this not precisely Rieux’s position? In short, have not the cyclical and eternally recurrent features of the human condition taken hold of this dramatized Camusian universe to such an extent that we are deprived of constructive possibilities for political action? Are we not reduced to a kind of defensive psychosis, with perhaps some commitment to giving money or verbal support to the likes of Amnesty International and the Red Cross, but no more? This may not have been Camus’s intent—he may not have even been aware of this sense of his work —but does this not seem to be the central thrust of the novel?
Nevertheless, The Plague has made clear the need for the establishment of a shared consciousness of our common condition as the precondition for the development of a human community. The entire movement of Camus’s thought leading up to and including the novel has revealed the importance, nay, from a social standpoint, the necessity, of such a
development. From this perspective, The Plague clearly represents a development that finally brings to the fore our collective condition and, by so doing, suggests the framework, for a solution to the tragedy of “The Misunderstanding” and The Myth. Yet the question of revolt still lacks satisfactory articulation. Revolt has achieved the social dimension hinted at in
“Caligula,” the recognition that individuals insist upon a certain dignity; that we must establish a communal framework of shared perceptions and meanings if we are to live a meaningful and fulfilling life in the face of a condition that denies humanity; and that there is an essentially communal base to living that must be reflectively grasped as the precondition of constructive human action. This transition stage The Plague has clearly established.
But if the social dimension is so essential, what happens to revolt when that dimension itself becomes oppressive? The universe of The Plague is Manichean: the good of communal revolt against the evil of the plague. The meaning of the struggle is grounded in the human values that emerge in, and are attested to by, the struggle. But what happens when the oppressive element is similarly human? When, as Tarrou claimed, it is the human being who carries the germ within him? Or when, further, it is humans that deny humans? How does revolt emerge there? And, more difficult still, on what does it seek to base its claims? Construct its community? Where then are the meanings and limits of the endeavor to be found? On these questions The Plague offers little assistance. It will be the task of the works that follow to address them.
With “The State of Siege” the problem of oppression and the destruction of felt human meaning will be posed by human beings. The logic of tyranny and the rupture of dialogue are once again encountered, but in a new setting. Here social revolt comes to the fore for the first time, tackling—in the person of Diego—but not resolving the dilemma that Tarrou embodied. It is
“The Just” that seeks to study the limits that such revolt must set for itself in terms of its own rationale: It poses the problem. The Rebel then undertakes to analyze the logic of revolt through a study of the dialectic of its betrayal. These two plays articulate an essential dimension of Camus’s thought: the emergence of social revolt in “The State of Siege” and the problem of its limits in “The Just.” My discussion of them will also serve as a preface to the consideration of The Rebel.