Why I liked the book called The Plague by Albert Camuut
By Kennett Peterson
Mr. Dyer’s Class Period 5
The book by Albert Camut called “The Plauge” was written in 1947 by Albert Camut. Albert Camut was a French existentialist. Existentialist believe that life is meaningless. In Albert Camut’s book called “The Plauge”, he talks about many things. The first one of these things is that the people in his book don’t like to do boring things like go to work. The second thing is that there is a lot of rats in the cities and rats spread diseases like polio. The third thing is that people don’t like to be trapped in a city that has lots of people dying of diseases and lots of dead rats that have bad fleas. I will talk about these things and more in my essay on “The Plague” by Albert Camut.
The people in this book live in a big city in Algeria, but they speak french for some reason. No one knows why. Scholars still debate. The people in his book go to work in the morning before they want to wake up, then they work, then they come home and go to sleep. They don’t like to do this but they are only concerned with making money. They work during the week and then they are very tired on Saturday and don’t do very much, but go out to cafes at night. I don’t know why they go to cafes at night. But the young people in the city like to go to them and stay out late and be loud in the streets. Then on Sunday the people in the city likes to go to the beach and go for a swim. Albert Camut says they debate whether or not they should go to church, but usually they decide to go to the beach instead because they want to be happy in the short term.
Rats have lots of diseases and live in sewers. They come out of the sewers one day and they start dying all over the place. Thousands of rats die and throw up on this old guy’s shoes. That guy owns a hotel and hates the rats because they are bad for his business, so he throws the dead rats outside and he swears a lot, but the book I’m reading has the swear words crossed out with a Sharpie so I can’t see what he’s saying. That old guy, who’s first name is Mme. picked up a rat by the tale one day, and a few days later he dies and gets a bad fever. All the people in the hotel don’t know it’s the plague but the main character in the book, who is a doctor, begins to get suspicious when his patients starts to die too also.
A lot the people in the book start to die a lot later in the book. they get the plague and the city is closed off other people and they are trapped. No one likes it their anymore and they hate being trapped. But they don’t really do anything that different than before, but they don’t like being there anymore. Camut is showing that they are stupid and don’t realize that their lives were the same before they were trapped by the plague and now that they are trapped by the plague they just begin to realize how pointless and stupid their lives are. That is my thesis statement.
I like the book called “The Plauge” because it was very interesting and it showed me that A) rats spread disease and I should not pick up a dead rat by the tail B) rats can be very large C) rats have thick legs that are good for climbing D) rats not only eat cheeses, but they also eat dead things and things in sewers and in storm drains E) rats are very intelligent animals and their wiskers are sensitve. I think everyone should have a rat as a pet. This book was a good book because it also showed me that I should just go to the beach every day instead of just Sunday.
KENNETT PETERSON 