A man is considered a perfect creature in the universe. The depth of internal human world, abilities to feel, think and make choice create the illusion of absolute freedom of the people. There is no doubt that the nature has poured boundless opportunities onto the man, but often person becomes a hostage of his or her individual emotions and thoughts. This catch is the most dangerous for humans, because it suppresses the will of men. In other words, people’s capabilities can deprive them of their freedom. It is an absurdity of the human being that is the crucial precursor for almost all events and phenomena in the life of a certain person s well as in the whole world. Such intimate conversation between the man and her or his internal personality leads to self-discovery and cognition of life and provokes a manifestation of unexpected traits generating unpredictable situations.

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Numerous questions that people raise in this private dialog make them face the only one really important choice between good and evil. Eventually, the question of an individual choice becomes the issue of collective importance. That is why any initiative, good and especially bad, is contagious like an infection that certainly affects all those who have weak immune systems and appear in the zone of its actions. Thus, it is no accident that Albert Camus chooses the plague disease as the main allegory in his eponymous novel in order to disclose the issues of life in the historical context of his time. This paper seeks to research the novel’s symbolism, its deep meaning through the disclosure of the personality of the leading characters, analyzing the historical background and author’s use of absurdism as an effective instrument of problem actualization.

It is hard to address the novel’s implication substantively and analyze its main figures without the understanding of the central and defining metaphor of plague. Taking into account the fact that the novel was written in the period of World War II and Nazi invasion of France, an allegory of Nazism is rather overwhelming (Vulliamy). Moreover, in Letter to Roland Barthes Camus claims that the plague “has as its obvious content the struggle of the European resistance movements against Nazism…” (Purdue 9). The hint of the mentioned allegory is present in the novel’s text, too:

“There have been as many plagues as wars in history, yet always plagues and wars take people equally by surprise.” (Camus 18)
When the War takes place on the certain territory, everybody and everything around is defined by it. Thus, the analogy of war state can be noticed in the Camus’ novel The Plague, where all spheres of life are under the influence of the disease in Oran city. Recognizing all aspects of the threats felt with his own heart, the author wanted to reflect the atmosphere of obsession and stuffiness that his contemporaries were wrapped in the 1940s.

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However, even the author’s clear explanation of the plague’s symbolism does not relieve the novel of its versatility. Nazi phenomenon is only a cumulative metaphor that consists of numerous cause-and-effect relations among human beings. All the aspects of the primary symbols – the wrong choice between good and evil, ignorance that spawned tyranny, emotional emptiness, apathy, despair and internal protest in the society – are depicted in the novel. Nazism, also illustrated as the plague disease, may be interpreted as a universal evil that anyhow exists everywhere regardless of time, because the man is its carrier. Therefore, one can see that the author fears not evil (or Nazism) in itself placing the person in front of this inexorable reality of human nature. The author’s main thought is that evil does not exist in separation from the men and, what is more important, even those who are not ill are carrying the disease in their hearts.
Camus does not leave his to attention different phenomena of the plague, such as ignorance and indifference, aloof. Moreover, Camus considers the first one as the crucial precursor of all evil: “The evil that is in the world always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding” (Camus, 64).

Moreover, here Albert Camus again appeals to the historical context in his novel: “…the most incorrigible vice being that of an ignorance that fancies it knows everything and, therefore, claims for itself the right to kill. The soul of the murderer is blind; and there can be no true goodness
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