Camus’ The Plague Lessons to confront the Coronavirus By: Tomás A. What is the most important thing to remember during a catastrophe? How do we confront the fact that someday we will die? Albert Camus attempts to address these questions in his novel The Plague published in 1947. The work was written originally in French and it highlights the importance of empathy in times of crisis from an absurdist point of view. Camus was an Algerian writer and philosopher who was raised by Pieds Noirs parents. He published a series of essays, plays, and novels throughout his life and is regarded as one of the most important literary figures of the twentieth century. He is most recognized for his novel L’etranger which was cataloged as the most important book of the century by the newspaper Le Monde. Throughout his work, Camus develops the concept of absurdism, the belief that we exist in a chaotic universe that is unresponsive and indifferent to our condition as humans. We live in a universe where we have to accept the fact that someday we will die. Camus points this out in his essays: The Myth of Sisyphus, The rebel, The Summer, and Nuptials. He explores the absurdity of death and the indifference of the universe and tries to establish a method to confront this absurdity, through the appreciation of quotidian beauty. “The absurd is born of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world. This must not be forgotten.” (The Myth of Sisyphus page 10). Now, being familiar with Camus’ general argument we can begin to acquaint ourselves with his novel: The plague which focuses on how we confront death in times of crisis. The plot of the story develops in the cloudy and seemingly lifeless city of Oran in northern Algeria and on the surface is allegorical to the Nazi occupation of Algeria in 1942. The description of the town is dark throughout most of the text and it works to mirror the collective psyche of the town that is depicted as a very materialistic and dull society: “The truth is that everyone is bored, and devotes himself to cultivating habits. Our citizens work hard, but solely with the object of getting rich” (The Plague Pg. 4). We see this mentality latent throughout the entire exposition of the text until gradually rats carrying the bubonic plague begin invading the streets of Oran, and within a few weeks, almost everyone in Oran is suffering from this terrible disease. Here, we begin to see the most pivotal aspect of the novel in action: its characters. Dr. Rieux is the protagonist who feels the ethical need to help the city overcome this epidemic and works tooth and nail for this to happen (much like the healthcare professionals we see today). We also have Jean Tarrou, a Spanish man who is visiting Oran after having fought in the republican side of the Spanish civil war. He arrives in Oran and he is an anomaly since instead of doing business he begins acquainting himself with all the dancers and artists in the town. He does not leave the city and he becomes a central, heroic character in the novel by helping the people in the city without any real obligation to do so (Nowadays we see this with the Cuban doctors who went to Italy to help alleviate the strain that is being put on the sanitary system). Thirdly, we have the opposite of these selfless, caring characters: Cottard. He is a selfish man who seeks to make a profit from the plague by selling contraband alcohol and cigarettes (embodied nowadays by the people who get coronavirus tests for leisure, individuals who hoard supplies, and the US senators who used government intelligence about the virus to make massive profits in the stock market). The way these character’s stories pan out throughout the novel is Camus’ way of helping us understand how to confront collective crises, or how to ‘confront the absurd’ and he arrives at the conclusion that we must do so together and with empathy. I recommend this novel to anyone wishing to understand how they fit into this difficult situation, it gives us a framework to understand how our actions in a time of crisis can radically change our society. Also exploring absurdism gives us extremely valuable insight into how to look at our life. For this, I recommend reading Camus’ The Fall, The Summer, and The Myth of Sisyphus. I do not know how clearly I have put into words the universe that Camus’ writing entails, I just hope I have intrigued you enough to spare some of the immense amounts of time you all have at home to explore this fantastic writer. Here is a great lecture that dives deeper into the philosophy of the novel. “Au milieu de l’hiver, j’apprenais enfin qu’il y avait en moi un été invincible” (Retour á Tipasa Pg 10) “In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer” Photo credit: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/1957/camus/facts/ https://www.iep.utm.edu/camus/ Full Text of The Plague: https://antilogicalism.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/the-plague.pdf Domestic Violence By Nora S. To: My Abuser You beat my back. You strangle me. You punched a hole in my wall. You bring out your big machinery and cut me up. You burn my skin. You poison my food. You drown me in my own tears. You’re greedy and you take so much... Parts of me are already gone Gone forever I will never be the same. Yours Truly, The Earth Bob Ross By Floria-Maria B. Bob Ross was an American painter who had an art television program in the 80s called The Joy of Painting. It aired 31 seasons which are now available on Youtube, in which Ross would teach viewers how to create a paisaje in under 30 minutes. The “Distant Mountains” is a Bob Ross inspired painting using his specific wet-on-wet oil painting technique. It incorporates a pallet knife, fan brush and, of course, paint. I chose to emulate Bob Ross’s painting due to its peaceful nature and tranquility, which seems to be lost in modern artwork. The painting has the signature “Happy little trees and few big mountains ” and feels much like every Bob Ross piece. I hope this inspires you to, in this time of reclusiveness, explore new art to brighten your time away from AAS. Best Films of 2019: By: Antoni K. This past year has been a great one for cinema and quite game-changing with regard to a historical triumph of a foreign film in the Best Picture category. As we are all currently homebound, I wanted to share my ranking of the best films that came out last year considering their American wide release dates. The list is entirely subjective, created without the use of any aggregator websites. Hopefully you will find some that have gone under your radar. Without further ado, here are 10 best, in my opinion, films from the past year: 1. Midsommar - dir. Ari Aster 2. Under the Silver Lake - dir. David Robert Mitchell 3. Parasite - dir. Joon-ho Bong 4. The Lighthouse - dir. Robert Eggers 5. Marriage Story - dir. Noah Baumbach 6. Jojo Rabbit - dir. Taika Waititi 7. Corpus Christi - dir. Jan Komasa 8. The Dead Don’t Die - dir. Jim Jarmusch 9. Rocketman - dir. Dexter Fletcher 10. Climax - dir. Gaspar Noé I Don’t Get It By: Salma F. I don’t get it. I am definitely no expert, I honestly barely understand anything at all about anything. To be honest I am just always confused and I need answers to all my questions. A lot of questions. All I do is ask questions all day, not necessarily out loud or to anyone but I always ask. This time I am confused about something most people in their adulthood are not so confused about. Money is a big thing, I mean that’s probably what we talk about 90% of the time. Maybe not directly but anything and everything is related to it. I mean from what I have heard since childhood, about 90% is related to money, I give TOK credit for not really talking about money all the time. But I mean first of all our entire life is based on money, but that is obvious. We get an education just to get a job to make money to send our children to school and get a good education so they can get money and do the same for their children. But It’s absolutely ludicrous that some people are just born with it. I always wondered why aren’t we born with a certain amount of money that can get us just essentials at least so we don’t die of hunger or other things that we could easily prevent. Then you would think okay then you would not want to work and then nothing would get done, but no because we would only get enough to buy things you absolutely need so people would have to work to get more things. Would that not just solve world hunger and poverty I mean I don’t know. And if you ask where would you get the money from, well that’s also something I am confused about. You print money so you could just have infinite amounts of it so just print some and give it to people, what is so hard I don’t understand.