 Hi, my name is Monty Johnson. I teach philosophy at the University of California, San Diego, and this is the fifth and final of my lectures on Albert Camus' The Plague Le Peste 1947 I'm using the translation of Stuart Gilbert published in 1948 So part five the final part coming after part one which Showed how slow the people of Oran were to acknowledge and accept the existence of the plague Part two where we got in-depth character development of Rio, Tarot, Rambeir, Grand, Pantelou, and others Chapter part three the pedestal chapter the most horrific and graphic description of The death associated with the plague Part four where we show the coping with the long and tedious aspects of the plague and how the Various characters change as a result of the circumstances now in part five we finally have the end and Resolution of it the plague ends If you compare Lucretius's Deirerum Natura, it ends with the onset of a plague Camus' plague begins with the onset of plague and ends with it being over and us passing into a tranquil state Some of the main characters by the end of died Others have survived but been profoundly Changed others remain essentially unchanged so the beginning of the end of the plague as Dr. Castell's plague serum seems to be more and more effective and the death rates begin to drop with surprising cases like grand the sudden setback of plague Was as welcome as it was unlooked for and the townsfolk However, we're in no hurry to jubilate all agreed that the amenities of the past couldn't be restored at once Destruction is an easier speedier process than reconstruction So while our lives have suddenly been thrown into Tumult it will be a very long time before they are restored to normal If they ever are in fact, they never will be Now Official communications Now confirm the popular belief that the victory over the plague was won and the enemy had abandoned its positions Really, however, it is doubtful whether this could be called a victory All that could be said was the the disease seemed to be leaving as Inaccountably as it had come one's chief impression Kamu writes is that the epidemic had called a retreat after reaching all of its objectives It had so to speak achieved its purpose the change in The situation with the plague is mirrored by the minds of the plague suffers So once the faintest stirring of hope becomes possible for them The dominion of the plague is said to be ended There are various so-called symptoms of the growing optimism falling food prices Return to communal living the soldiers go back to their barracks the nuns and monks to their Cloisters and so on students return to campus and the dormitories by January 25 Plague is declared over But out of an abundance of caution the gates are to be left closed for two more weeks Quote no doubt the plague was not yet ended a fact of which they were to be reminded still in Imagination they could already hear weeks in advance trains whistling on their way to an outside world That had no limit So they've been Exiled within their own city Which appears like a prison and their own homes or even prisons become prisons within prisons And so they imagine the whiteness and infinitude of the actual outside world now very interesting interaction between the characters Cotard and to row that is between the criminal and the saint the narrator consults to rows notes on Cotard which are interspersed with his random observations about other people for example grand who has already gone back to work as if nothing happened and Rio's mother whose kindness to row glorify But as the optimism of the town grows The criminal fugitive Cotard seems to be the one person in the town who views this with consternation when We first met Cotard. He had just attempted to commit suicide Everything was fine in the town but bad with him then when things went bad in the town He got better now that they're getting better in the town. He's going into a worse state So he's been consulting Rio about the course of the epidemic and he's reassured by any uncertainty or skepticism and distressed by any signs of progress because they seem to Indicate that the day of his punishment and even possibly of his death is nearing and He is governed by his fear of punishment and death By the day the plague is declared over January 25 Cotard has become reclusive on One occasion he's drawn out and discusses the future with tarot who speaks of a return to normal life When Cotard asks him what he means by this he says new films at the picture houses meaning new Fantasy images that people will be able to pursue at this point their imaginations are bleak inactive not descriptive not vivid at all but They will have new Imaginings in due course But then tarot reflects on whether anything will have changed as a result of the plague and I'd like to read his consideration about that But Cotard didn't smile was it supposed he asked that the plague wouldn't have changed anything and The life of the town would go on as before exactly as if nothing had happened tarot thought that the plague would have changed things and Not changed them naturally our fellow citizen's strongest desire was and would be To behave as if nothing had changed and for that reason nothing would be changed in a sense But to look at it from another angle one can't forget everything However great one's wish to do so the plague was bound to leave traces anyhow in people's hearts and the Though we're in the resolution and very relieved to be hearing about these good signs We are Again continually disappointed by the ever present existence of death So even as things return to normal There's more death to come and that makes sense because death is normal and Tarot whose journal entries end with the observations about coddard that I just mentioned Has not been feeling at all well and when Rio is able to examine him. He diagnoses him with plague So coddard Or rather to row had almost Survived and made it past the whole thing in fact He made it to the point where the plague is considered over but before the town is opened He's stricken with it So Rio and his mother decide to keep to row at their own house Serum is administered to him Rio sits up with to row in the sick bid and notices the sounds of a normal Plague-free night out his window, but within his window in his house He Doses while to row is tossing and turning and suffering and in the early morning To row ends up breathing a little bit better But this appears just to be the typical temporary remission of the disease and by noon to row is again wrapped with disease and Convulsing pathetically his eyes open to gaze at Rio and his mother Less and less and eventually the smile which had always been on his face is replaced by an inert mask like face of death Rio cries what he calls tears of impotence He's profoundly Saddened by the death of his friend Quote this defeat was final the last disastrous battle that ends a war and makes peace itself an ill beyond Remedy and he says to row had lost the match as he put it But what had he Rio won no more than the experience of having known plague and remembering it of having known Friendship and remembering it of knowing affection and being destined one day to remember it So all a man could win in the conflict between plague and life was knowledge and memories But to row perhaps would have called that winning the match Why would to row call that winning the match? Because to row is a philosopher. He is an intellectual what he values as knowledge he believes that knowledge produces virtue virtue produces happiness and tranquility and he had pursued that knowledge and Achieved that virtue not as much as he would have liked in pursuing a kind of secular sainthood, but as much as possible Nevertheless to Rose death has a kind of numbing effect on Rio Which quote no doubt explains dr. Rio's composure on receiving next morning the news of his wife's death Which comes from afar in the first part She was seen off by Rio on a train going to a mountain sanitarium to be treated for some other Illness Rio of course a feels enormous guilt that he wasn't able to help her or Treat her even though he spent the entire novel treating and helping other people. He was not able to Begin the fresh start with his wife that he had hoped when he saw her off the character Ram Bear Reunited at last with his lover on a fine February morning the ceremonial opening of the gates takes place Trains arrive full of people and depart full of people lovers are reunited and Ram Bearer who spent most of the novel trying to escape in order to reunite with his girlfriend now actually feels trepidation and nervousness about meeting her in the flesh and blood as opposed to the pale abstraction that she's become as he has tried to remember her Quote if only he could put the clock back and be once more the man who at the outbreak of the Epidemic had had only one thought and one desire to escape and return to the woman He loved but that he knew was out of the question now He had changed too greatly the plague had forced on him a detachment Which try as he might he couldn't think away and which like a formless fear haunted his mind Although he thought the plague had ended to abruptly. He hadn't had time to pull himself together Happiness was bearing down on him full speed the event outrunning expectation So Ram Bearer's reunion with his lover is described as Decreasing sadness and fear Decreasing pain thus increasing pleasure This is starkly contrasted with the grief of those who could not be reunited Quote for these last who had now for company only their newborn grief For those who at this moment were dedicating themselves to a lifelong memory of bereavement For these unhappy people matters were quite different The pangs of separation had touched their climax for the mother's husband's wives and leather Lovers who had lost all joy now that the loved one lay under a layer of quick lime in a death pit Or was a mere handful of indistinctive ashes in a gray mound the plague had not yet ended But for Ram Bearer it has ended But its ending is not a return to what he was before Instead he's a changed man. He's more detached. He doesn't immediately pursue his desires Instead he more moderately pursues them and by focusing on Other people and helping other people is a volunteer for the sanitary squads. He is able to enjoy the Pleasure of reuniting with his lover and actually become happy So as for Ram Bearer and his lover It specifically said for some time anyhow, they would be happy Now this is contrasted with Cotard's end in the final Chapter Rio Reveals that he's the narrator and he asserts that he has been Reporting facts as he's seen them and not sort of moralizing about them Regarding his own troubles and struggles. He says that he's held his peace, but when it comes to Cotard He reports some moral disapproval and an earlier comment of Tarot's quote Cotard's only real crime is That of having in his heart approved of something that killed off men women and children I can understand the rest but for that I am obliged to pardon him It is fitting that this chronicle should end with some reference to that man who had an ignorant that is to say a lonely heart so Cotard approved of the plague because the plague caused a kind of vicious behavior and character of everyone which made him feel at home and made him an equal He's an ignorant man Ignorance breeds viciousness viciousness brings unhappiness But unhappy man among other unhappy people can feel better about himself now Cotard ends up running a muck with a gun and he's holed up in his apartment taking shots at The police this is the same apartment at which grand his neighbor who originally saved him from suicide lives His building is eventually surrounded by armed police who bring on a shotgun machine guns and Set up bombs to detonate near his apartment Eventually, he's driven out of it and led away Now since Cotard was both ignorant and vicious He was unhappy to the point of suicide at the beginning of the novel During the plague in quarantine. He flourished selling on the black market evading justice and so on and He even seemed to enjoy a kind of uneasy happiness, but when things return to normal He returns to an even worse unhappiness of violent and self-destructive one his Fear of punishment and death actually drive him to death murder and suicide Now the narrators end So over the harbor a firework display is set off by the municipality the town's folk were just the same as ever it seems and as his Memory of Toro Cotard his wife and others fade the narrator becomes more tranquil It's revealed that it's Rio and he reveals his motive for compiling the entire Chronicle quote So that he should not be one of those who hold their peace but should bear witness in favor of those plague stricken people So that some memorial of the injustice and outrage done them might endure and to state quite simply What we learn in a time of pestilence That there are more things to admire in men than to despise Nonetheless, he knew that the tale he had to tell could not be one of final victory it could only be the record of what had had to be done and What assuredly would have to be done again in the never-ending fight against terror and its relentless onslaughts Despite their personal afflictions by all who while unable to be saints But refusing to bow down to pestilences Strive their utmost to be healers. I Love this passage because it shows that the true heroes of the novel have essentially been the health care workers and The volunteers that have helped the health care workers Rio has knowledge virtue and happiness and thus he enjoys a kind of tranquility and authority the very conclusion of the book Rio's tranquility and joy Will have to be carefully preserved for it will inevitably be tested again and again and this is the final message of the work quote and Indeed as he listened to the cries of joy rising from the town Rio remembered that such joy is always Imperiled he knew that those what those jubilant crowds did not know but could have learned from books That the plague bacillus never dies or disappears for good that it can lie dormant for years and years in furniture and linen chests That it bides its time in bedrooms cellars trunks and bookshelves and That perhaps the day would come When for the bane and enlightening of men it would rouse up its rats again and send them forth to die in a happy city So that is literally the last chapter of the whole novel that be careful people. It's coming again We could have known it was coming again by reading books of history Lucretius Tells us it's coming again when he describes how it happened hundreds of years before he was writing in Athens and Plagues do come again and again and have come again and again and are here now and so this Fragile joy we have to find a way of preserving and the means of doing that is knowledge and Virtue So I will give some final character analysis first about characters that die in the novel coddard Unlike Socrates in the Gorgias and the Crito coddard is not willing to undergo The punishment that he deserves and that would make him better instead he escapes punishment but the result is a Temporary and unstable joy or pleasure Accompanied by a lack of Tranquility and then ultimately a miserable suicidal unhappiness As Epicurus points out such a person will be driven mad by the fear of punishment and Because what he fears in punishment is ultimately death his fear of death becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy In Hobbesian terms, he's unwilling unwilling to relinquish his right of nature to do anything he wants including crime and Killing other people thus he breaks the first law of nature to seek peace by submitting to legitimate civic authority in the end he is Justly incapacitated and removed from society Father Pantalo He dies with his faith shaken, but still intact This has alienated him from all the other characters his friends and in fact all other humans But he must accept the idea that human suffering Even that of an innocent child are caused by God for some purpose, which we can't ever know His first sermon was harmful and contributed to the fear and panic of the citizens His second sermon shows that religion cannot even provide an effective consolation and Tarot Tarot like Socrates in the Gorgias Holds that he would consider nothing worse than putting someone else to death Unjustly and he's tried to structure his every action in order to avoid wrongdoing and thus drove him To the noble actions of creating the volunteer Sanitary squads that one for him the friendship and admiration of Rio and others In Hobbesian terms, he is submitted to the law of nature But is not entirely satisfied with the unlimited power of the political state, which is created as a result but his Embrace of poverty his dropping out of society and his focus on being a just person Allows him to overcome the fear of death Enjoy true friendship with Rio and die Tranquility surrounded by his friends So three very different outcomes of three different characters that die What about the characters that survive first Rambeir Although like a true Epicurean Rambeir has been led around by his Desires he is initially misled by them into pursuing an illegal escape from his circumstances But he avoids doing this due to his shame and begins to focus on those who are less fortunate than himself Joining the voluntary sanitary squads and the resulting fellow feeling Improves him and he becomes more virtuous as a result He enjoys greater happiness and tranquility Win through the windfall of fate. He manages to survive the plague and is eventually United with his lover Grant Like Rambeir Grant changes but less so in fact his steady and almost constant character Allows him to overcome the challenges which he confronts Challenges which he carefully limits in an Epicurean fashion so as to not to try to do more Than he is in fact capable of his Constancy of character and steady tranquility sees him through even in affliction with the plague His eventual overcoming of writer's block is an indication of his own self-improvement Not that he's become much better of a writer but by focusing on those less fortunate than himself He overcomes the regret and sadness. He was ruminating on about his ex-wife and Grant the most boring character by far in the novel Had been called the hero by the narrator who denies the existence of heroism That narrator turns out to be Rio and in a way he is the true hero of the story He possesses knowledge and he exhibits virtue not just prudence But also temperance courage and justice he remains Tranquil and even happy despite the death of his wife and best friend and Despite seeing so much death for so long his life has meaning It's a meaning that he's discovered and cultivated himself despite his exhausting work Dedicated health care workers are the true heroes of the plague if there are any now just a couple of Final political and ethical reflections To some extent as I've interpreted the work. It's an exhortation to Knowledge and virtue as a means to tranquility and happiness These are more than ever needed when the inevitable crises of life and crises of the world occur unexpectedly whether these are natural or artificial disasters and crises If we are to maintain our tranquility, we must not fear either punishment or death Punishment and the fear of punishment we can avoid by becoming just people death we cannot avoid but the fear of death we can avoid By focusing on those less fortunate than ourselves and devoting ourselves to helping them By being part of and benefiting from an unjust society, we are implicated in its injustices Moral sainthood and escape from these injustices is no more possible than escape from the plague or the pandemic And yet the implication is that we must work ever harder to be aware of how our own actions Can enable and actually aid evil being cavalier about obeying stay-at-home orders Social distancing recommendations wearing masks, etc Means putting other people's lives at risk unnecessarily and even if this is not as Teroses it a kind of murder is a depraved kind of injustice that devalues human life and existence Thank you