Beyond the Tragic Abyss: Transcending Absurdist Limits in Camus’s Fiction Dr. Abba A Abba

Abstract

So much critical works have examined Camus’s The Plague as an allegorical representation of the Nazi terror in France as well as an exploration of Camus’s Absurdist philosophy. From the latter perspective, the thematic preoccupation of the work is likened to the Sisyphean myth of man’s abiding condemnation to meaningless toil. Although these criticisms are insightful in interpreting the work, they hardly illuminate the tragic hopefulness that enables the central character to transcend mere passive struggle, and hit boldly at the door of cruel fate in order to wrest freedom for the community. As this paper argues, Camus's idea of the absurd is rooted in the tragic sense of life in which man's confrontation with the ‘more than man’ is affirmed and reaffirmed. Although the argument in Camus’s The Myth of Sisyphus that suicide is not legitimate, has further implication for the entire European disaster, the myth dwells on the premise that even within the limits of nihilism it is possible to find the means to proceed. But as this paper insists, The Plague moves further than this mere attempt at existence to meditate on spirited and defiant interrogation of the forces that torment man’s soul. It is, as Camus would suggest "a lucid invitation to live and to create, in the very midst of the desert" (3).   Thus the paper concludes that unlike the Sisyphean figure in his flaccid acceptance of his fate, the  tragic optimist in The Plague, remains an avower of the universal instinct. He is in short, a figure of Nietzsche’s the Ubermensch (the overman), that titanically striving individual who struggles because he must. He is celebrated in the narrative not only for the testimony which his actions give to the human spirit but for their lyrical invocation of a humanity that refuses to sink in to tragic defeat, even when the crush is inevitable.