"The Plague" is it existential?

Question

Is Albert Camus "The Plague" existential? He argues that it is not because it lacks a philosophical system, ranks morals above politics, and he considers himself agnostic rather than atheist. I am doing a paper on this topic and it got me thinking.
Your thoughts?
PS- if you read "The Plague" what else by Camus or any other writer of his fashion would you recomend because I would love to read more!

Thanks!

Answer 1

The Plague is very easy to read from an existential perspective.
A range of characters together but each alone have to find their personal rationale to face living under threat.

We are all under threat of death, their threat is only the usual one brought into sharp focus.

I would take it that a philosophical system is one of the things that may be found or lost in an existential grasping for meaning. To insist on it is only a personal value judgement.

Camus hoped for meaning in love and companionship, and from rebelling against injustice. But he realised that both hopes might ultimately prove hollow.

(see his novel "The Outsider.")

I would say Camus is either not quite an existentialist, or he is the most human of them.

Rieux, the doctor in The Plague appears to most as the right-minded hero because we can quite easily identify the epidemic itself as evil.
But "fighting against creation as he found it." is a rebellion without universal reason. And people have varied as to what should be fought, as evidence of this.

They still do. As the modernist world's optimism falters, this way lies postmodernism with all its fragments and voices speaking past each other.

Answer 2

I fyou are looking for some GREAT existential literature, look to the modern father of Existentialesm, and a compatriate of Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre. If you sare looking for something quick and easy, read The Wall. If you really want to sink your teeth into existentialism, read Nausea. They both represent a greater grasp on the tenets of existentialism than you could ever find with reading Camus.

Kafka was another great existential writer. Any Barnes & NOble or Borders will have a complete Kafka collection of his short stories for around $20. Highly recommended, especially Jackal & Arabs, and The Hunger Artist.

Answer 3

Yes it is. I also recommend The Stranger or The First Man by Camus.

Answer 4

nicely to apply the be conscious "wax" as a verb means which you will be going slightly too far. As in to "wax nostalgic". If one have been to "over analyze" a view element: "that's greater effective to be sensible than happy." "i might particularly be happy than sensible." "What makes you think of you're happy?" "What makes you think of you're sensible?" you be attentive to, those around arguments that often finally end up with somebody asserting "you basically don't understand!" worrying an existential element to a daft severe for no actual reason.