Jung, the Wolfman and Haller in Steppenwolf.

I will seek to explore the relationship between Haller`s wolf /man identity using a Jungian

model of the self I will argue that the opposition of reason and desire reaches integration by

the end of Steppenwolf. Some reference will be made Nietzchian ideas and make some

reference to the psychoanalytical triadic model of Michael Jacobs. The above will also inform

a discussion in Jungian terms of human nature.

In a note to the novel written in 1961, Hesse declared that many had failed to understand the

message of Steppenwolf. (Hesse p5)The book was not only about Haller's many miseries and

failings. Hesse emphasized that the book was not about despair but belief. In 1916, Hesse

entered the Kurhaus Sonnmatt sanatorium near Lucerne, where he first encountered Josef B.

Lang. Lang, a Jungian became Hesse’s long-term therapist, and facilitated Hesse’sexploration

of his youth, his desires, and his own neurosis.

In the treatise, Haller is compared to a gardener who cultivates a garden of a thousand flowers but then divides them into only two categories, edible and inedible. Since this is too crude a distinction, he misses nine-tenths of the beauty and value of the garden. According to the treatise, "This is what the Steppenwolf does with the thousand flowers of his soul. What does not stand classified as either man or wolf he does not see at all." (Hesse p79)

Jung argued that the psyche was structured into three parts. The first part was the conscious mind. The conscious mind is personal to the individual and within it the ego is crucial to the sense of identity. The conscious mind is concerned with memory, perception, feelings and awareness. The rest of the mind is unconscious and can only be accessed through dreams and experiences like that of the Magic Theatre . The second section is the personal unconscious. Like the conscious this is unique to the person and is created from repressed desires, subliminal experiences and forgotten events. This may be aspects of trauma and threats which challenge the ego. This would also have within it many of the readings of the senses that we are constantly dealing with because we cannot be conscious to all of them. The final aspect is the collective unconscious. This is the realm of the archetypes and belongs collectively to humanity. He regarded this ‘as the greatest of all cosmic wonders’ (Snowden page 49)

Jung argued that the personal unconscious contained clusters of ideas, thoughts, memories organised around an affective core. He described these as ‘feeling-toned complexes’. Jung (1907, 82.) These are the basic structural units of the psyche. These were the ‘living units of the psyche’ (1934 p191). He argued that each of these splinters were capable of a degree of intentionality. They are similar to real personalities and if they gain control of the ego they can determine behaviours. (Sandner Beebe, 1995, p302)The aim of depth psychology is to explore the negative complexes before their content becomes conscious and causes the individual to fulfil them. Harry Haller is a "genius of suffering"(Hesse p11); and that Harry has "created within himself with positive genius a boundless and frightful capacity of pain (Hesse, 11)." To Jung the danger was that the individual became trapped in dead ends and only followed well worn paths. Our dreams and fantasies therefore are always pointers to these complexes and show us where we are in danger of being unbalanced. We can clearly see here the influence of Frederich Nietzsche’s vitalism in which the complexes have desires, intentions and aims of their own. (Southwell,P 157) Haller`s fate is to live the whole of human destiny heightened to a personal torture, a personal hell. (Hesse, 25) Harry alludes to Nietzsche who is hanging between an "animal" and an "Overman" over the "Abyss" in Thus Spake Zarathustra (Ch 4.). Harry's pain and hopelessness are depicted when he considers suicide .

To Jung the unconscious was full of the seed of future events that existed outside time. The collective unconscious does not evolve out of the experience of the individual, but is composed mainly of issues that have never been conscious, those is not acquired, but are passed down from before. The collective unconscious contains within it archetypes and instincts. These van be thought of as Haller`s “Immortals” . They are not image or idea, but are rather basic patterns of psychic activity that all humans’ experiences are organised around. The second area is the instincts which are the biological needs that influence our responses. These are things as sexuality, hunger and aggression. Unlike Freud who used the word libido to describe the sexual drive, Jung argued that there is no one single motivating instinct of the mind. For Jung the psyche is a dynamic system that is both changing and self regulating. In a sense this libido moves between two different points which Jung calls the ‘opposites’. The greater the difference between the two opposites, the greater the libido and to Jung there are two basic movements within this structure of the unconscious. The first is progression and this deals with adaption to the circumstances that the individual finds themselves in. The opposite is regression and this is concerned with the inner world of fantasies, dreams and symbols. Both forces are necessary for a balanced outlook and we can see the basic metaphor of homeostasis in Jungian thought. Until Haller achieves this his life has become a waste and empty hell of lifelessness and despair. He fails because he has been unable to live according to the truth of his own being. He has created a prison for himself by narrowing and limiting his concept of who he is

To Jung the ego is the central point of consciousness and enables us to have a basic sense of identity. Jung argued that the egos job was to help us function in everyday life, unlike Freud who saw the ego as a means to tell us what was true and to protect the psyche. Jung believed that the ego is not the same as the Self which is the whole container of personality that has within it all unconscious and conscious aspects of the psyche. . The essential goal of the Self is to individuate and become complete. "Harry consists of a hundred or a thousand selves, not two"; human nature is too complex to be viewed between only two extremes Harry's life oscillates, as everyone's does, not merely between two poles, (such as reason and desire , wolf and man) , the saint and the sinner, but between thousands and thousands". (Hesse, 66)

The well being of the ego therefore is essential and depends upon the well being of the Self. An ego that is too powerful on the other hand can form a dictatorial personality that maybe the route to a dangerous psychopathology. In the second half of life the ego and the Self oppose one another and we begin to slowly understand that the self is more crucial. It is at this stage that the personality begins to integrate and eventually we attain well being and greater consciousness. "All the love that I had missed in my life bloomed magically in my garden during this hour of dreams."(Hesse p157) He learns that the personality is not fixed and rigid but contains a thousand different elements that can be moved around and recombined in different ways like so many pieces of a chessboard. This thinking frees him from the man/wolf dichotomy that has previously dominated and limited his awareness and makes him ready to experience the human world.

Jung’s most unique contribution is the shadow. The shadow is the elements of the personality that contain weaknesses and the areas that a person cannot admit to having. All individuals have a shadow. The less we are aware of that shadow, the denser and darker it is. This is because the further apart the two poles are, the further apart are the balancing units, these aspects for Haller are the wolf and the man

"One exists simply and solely to harm the other, and when there are two in one blood and in

one soul who are at deadly enmity, then life fares ill" (Hesse, 48).  

When a person has a weak ego they are in danger of being controlled by the shadow and this can be clearly seen where Haller states “ they would either explode and separate forever, and there would be no more Steppenwolf, or else they would come to terms in the dawning light of humour" (Hesse, 64).

In Man and his Symbols in chapter 3 The Process of Individuation Von Franz describes this process as ‘the initial crisis in the life of an individual’ (p 170 Jung1964) she continues on pg 171 ‘that one must begin the process by swallowing all sorts of bitter truths’. By becoming aware of our shadow we can in another sense see our own light and once we examine our shadow and understand the two opposites we achieve a sense of well being and insight

“The wolf in me howled in gleeful triumph, and a dramatic struggle between my two selves followed” (Hesse p93)

An inability to see these two poles would thereby be the cause of a psychopathology. “ It is clear that this weak and anxious being, in whatever numbers he exists, cannot maintain himself, and that qualities such as his can play no other role in the world than that of a herd of sheep among free roving wolves.” (Hesse p49)

Jung argued that the persona was like a false personality that a person may believe is real. If we identify with our persona we without thinking project all our shortcomings onto others and therefore, we must link in the persona as being the opposite pole to the shadow. Identification with a persona does not fit into a concept of well being and is therefore one more contribution to a psychopathology.

Jung also believed that everyone has an inner personality and attitude with faces the unconscious reality of the psyche. Jung describes the anima as the unconscious feminine aspect of a man with the animus being the corresponding aspect of a woman’s psyche Hermine can be considered in this role as Haller`s anima Hermine reminds him of his youth, his first love with Rosa Kreisler, and his mother, but he is unable to pinpoint what exactly she resembles (Hesse, 100). Carl Jung, states “As long as man is unconscious of his anima, she is frequently projected upon a real woman, and the man’s fantasy equips her with all the fascinating qualities peculiar to the anima cited in (Tusken, 116)”. Maria can be perceived as an aspect of Hermine’s personality; a sensuous expression of the many parts of life. Her role is to prepare Harry for the “beautiful picture” that Haller will witness at the climax of the novel (Hesse, 238).

At this point Haller experiences a Jungian “flash of insight” His fate is about to take a twist, and the “doors” for him are soon going to open .While there he becomes intoxicated and, finding Pablo and the Hermine asleep side by side, he hallucinates driving a knife into Hermine’s chest. Still fantasizing, he imagines a conversation with Mozart about the necessity of learning to laugh at the apparently real and to remain mindful of only the ideal, then a trial in which he is sentenced to eternal life for his imagined murder of an imaginary figure. Mozart suddenly returns and becomes Pablo, who criticises Haller for his confusion of the ideal and real and then vanishes, with Hermine leaving Haller to reflect.( Hesse p209)

Haller is prepared to resume life, to suffer its agonies and senselessness once more, hopeful that he someday will be able, like Goethe and Mozart, to distinguish between ideas and appearance and to rise above it all and laugh. Or, in Nietzschean terms, to overcome himself, to become an “overman,” unfettered by conventional and artificial limits and free to experience. In the Magic Theatre Haller discovers “All girls are yours”(.Hesse p209) He re-lives loves of his life like he missed in real life. This time his inhibitions are gone; he acknowledges the relationship between innocence, youth, and sex. This is the basis of the lessons learned from Maria.

The above diagram illustrates the linkage between personality and to quote Michael Jacobs in ‘the Presenting Past’ that linked past relationships and present relationships and can be considered as linking through the internalised objects ‘in here’ ‘back then’ and ‘out there’. It can be seen therefore that knowledge of the self is primary and is the bridge between the man and the beast the reason and the erotic. “From her I had learned once more to confide myself in child-like fashion to the play on the surface of life, to seek the most fleeting pleasures, to be a child and a beast in the innocence of sex (Hesse, 179)”. Haller has to find his anima (Hermine) to become one of the immortals. Haller accepts the reality that his life is not a struggle between wolf and a man. “Pablo was waiting for me, and Mozart too”. (Hesse p253) Hesse states that human nature is not only “a disease and a crisis -but not one leading to death and destruction, on the contrary :to healing” ( Hesse p6)

Notes

‘Anyone who wants to know the human psyche will learn next to nothing from experimental psychology. He would be better advised to put away his scholar's gown, bid farewell to his study, and wander with human heart through the world. There, in the horrors of prisons, lunatic asylums and hospitals, in drab suburban pubs, in brothels and gambling-hells, in the salons of the elegant, the Stock Exchanges, Socialist meetings, churches, revivalist gatherings and ecstatic sects, through love and hate, through the experience of passion in every form in his own body, he would reap richer stores of knowledge than text-books a foot thick could give him, and he will know how to doctor the sick with real knowledge of the human soul’

"New Paths in Psychology" In Jung CW 7: Two Essays on Analytical Psychology. P.409

The psyche is a self-regulating system that maintains its equilibrium just as the body does. Every process that goes too far immediately and inevitably calls forth compensations, and without these there would be neither a normal metabolism nor a normal psyche. In this sense we can take the theory of compensation as a basic law of psychic behaviour. Too little on one side results in too much on the other.

"The Practical Use of Dream Analysis" (1934). In CW 16: The Practice of Psychotherapy.

‘The world has become full of symptons’ In James Hilman and Michael Ventura book We’ve had a hundred years of psychotherapy and the world’s still getting worse’, San Fransisco, Harper (1992

‘In every man........ There is one part which concerns only himself and his contingent existence, is properly unknown to anybody else and dies with him. And there is another part for which he holds to an idea which is expressed through him with an imminent clarity, and of which he is the symbol’

Wilhelm von Humboldt “autobiographical fragments” 1816 cited in The Aryan Christ

Bibliography

Jacobs, Michael “The Presenting Past “Open University Press 2006

Jung Carl "New Paths in Psychology" In CW 7: Two Essays on Analytical Psychology. P.409

Jung,Carl, Man and his Symbols, 1964, USA, Dell Publishing

Hillman James and Ventura Michael We’ve had a hundred years of psychotherapy and the world’s still getting worse’, San Fransisco, Harper (1992

Southwell, Gareth (2009) A Beginners Guide to Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil, Chichester, Wiley-Blackwell

Snowden, J Teach yourself Iung 2006 London Hodder Education

Hesse, Herman Steppenwolf Penguin London 1961

Camus and the concept of the Absurd

In his first major philosophical essay, The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus developed the notion

of the absurd to serve as the existential condition of man. This notion was implicitly

recognized by existentialist writers whom Camus admired, but he thought the absurd was a

broader principle that underpinned certain existential dilemmas

Put simply, the absurd is the existential condition that arises from the confrontation between

the nostalgic human being and the coldly indifferent world in which he or she lives. In

Camus’s own words, it is “the metaphysical state of the conscious man.” (Myth of

Sisyphus p40 ) Human beings desire order, purpose and happiness in their lives, and the

world provides none of these—at least not in any permanent fashion. To clarify this concept

of absurdity, it is necessary to point out that absurdity itself is a characteristic of neither the

human being nor the world solely, but of their interaction. Establishing the concept of

absurdity as a first principle, Camus wrote,

.... “I said that the world is absurd, but I was too hasty. This world in itself is not reasonable,

that is all that can be said. But what is absurd is the confrontation of this irrational

[world] and the wild longing for clarity whose call echoes in the human heart. The

absurd depends as much on man as on the world. For the moment it is all that links them

together. It binds them one to the other as only hatred can weld two creatures together. This is all I can discern clearly in this measureless universe where my adventures take

place.” (Myth of Sisyphus p21)

Camus took this to be a symptom of the absurd because it attests to the fact that no unifying

principle can explain the world. Obviously, Camus attributed great significance to the notion

of absurdity. It is not merely one characteristic of the human interaction with the outside

world, but the defining characteristic. Camus saw the absurd as one of three essential

components that constitute the “drama” of existence. Absurdity is born out of the

confrontation between the two other components: the “human nostalgia” for unity or clarity

and the “unreasonable silence of the world.” `(Myth of Sisyphus p28)

Therefore, the concept of absurdity depends upon the qualification of the two other

components. If humans did not possess a nostalgia for unity,

the so-called “unreasonable silence of the world” `(Myth of Sisyphus p21would not seem to

be absurd. Likewise, if the events of the world did represent some reasonable unity of

purpose, the nostalgic human being would not find existence to be absurd. Camus reinforced

the existence of the absurd by showing that the human nostalgia for unity and clarity is real,

and by arguing that the unreasonable world will never satisfy this nostalgia.

“I can negate everything of that part of me that lives on vague nostalgias, except this

desire for unity, this longing to solve, this need for clarity and cohesion.” `(Myth of Sisyphus

p51) Indeed, this very act of negating all uncertainties is itself characteristic of the human

desire for understanding. Camus identified reason as the force that drives the human

nostalgia for understanding. This longing for clarity, known as reason, is inevitably directed

towards the world in which one lives in an attempt to find some meaning or purpose. Camus

argued that the rational pursuit of understanding would always take place on a human scale:

“Understanding the world for a man is reducing it to the human, stamping it with his seal.”

(Myth of Sisyphus p110) Reason demands, not only the existence of a unified meaning of

reality, but also that this unified meaning be comprehensible in human terms.

Neither did he presume that the world is devoid of transcendent meaning, but that human

beings cannot understand such a notion, and therefore, it cannot mitigate the uncertainty that

precipitates the existence of the absurd in the present sense. The epistemological limit of

human reason that Camus recognizes is an essential component of the absurd. The ability to

recognize these limits based on practical experience are called lucidity. Absurdist

consciousness requires reason as well as lucidity. Camus wrote, “The absurd is lucid

reasoning noticing its limits.” `(Myth of Sisyphus p49)

The faculty of lucidity grounds man in his own experience preventing him from abandoning

that experience in the name of false understanding.

“If there is an absurd, it is in man’s universe. The moment the notion transforms itself into

eternity’s springboard, it ceases to be linked to human lucidity.” `(Myth of Sisyphus p35)

Reason tempts, and lucidity restrains. Only the lucid individual will understand the limits of

reason and recognize the divorce between the desire to understand and the inability to

understand as a fundamental aspect of the absurd. From Camus’s description, reason is the

defining quality that sets man apart from the world, which is utterly irrational. “This

ridiculous reason is what sets me in opposition to all creation.” `(Myth of Sisyphus p115)

Much of Camus’s writing in The Myth of Sisyphus is dedicated to establishing a conscious

recognition of the absurd, but consciousness of the absurd was merely a beginning.

The purpose of The Myth of Sisyphus was to determine whether suicide is a logical reaction to

this absurdist consciousness. Camus concluded that suicide is an illogical reaction for the

man who realizes his absurd fate.

“Living an experience, a particular fate, is accepting it fully. Now, no one will live this fate knowing it to be absurd, unless he does everything to keep before him that absurd brought to light by that consciousness. Negating one of the terms of the opposition on which he lives amounts to escaping it.” (Myth of Sisyphus p53)

The existence of the absurd allows possibilities for the human being of the existence of the

absurd through a lapse in lucidity or through a “leap” in reason. Such a leap is an “escape” in

which “the struggle is eluded” `(Myth of Sisyphus p36) by imposing some meaning upon

reality that originates outside of the realm of lived experience. Camus insisted that lucidity

must inform man of the limits of reason so that he may avoid leaps and retain his absurdist

consciousness. Second, one may recognize the existence of the absurd and fully accept it.

Therefore, the very recognition of the absurd implies that one rejects one’s fate—although

one is aware of it. This relates to the final possibility of resistance. Resistance is the logical

reaction to an absurd situation, and for Camus this is the essence of life.

According to Camus, resistance, the appropriate reaction to the absurd, is closely linked

to formulating an accurate conception of reality. Those characters in The Plague that refuse

to acknowledge the absurd obviously display delusional tendencies. The absurdity contained

in this work is unavoidable. On the other hand, characters such as Father Paneloux, who

recognize the absurd and repulsive nature of the plague, accept the absurd by giving into their

desire for unity and by assuming that the tortuous events serve a divine purpose. Still others,

such as Dr. Rieux, realize that the plague is beyond human comprehension, and because they

recognize the absurdity of the plague, they resist. Indeed, Rieux limits his reflection to the

immediacy of the situation refusing to try to understand the significance of the plague. He

comments to his friend Tarrou,

“I have no idea what’s awaiting me or what will happen when all this ends. For the

moment I know this; there are sick people and they need curing. Later on, perhaps,

they’ll think things over; and so shall I. But what’s wanted now is to make them well.”( The Plague p127)

Camus was able to illustrate many possible forms of rebellion but I shall limit this to four

characters in particular that represent the full spectrum of rebellious behaviour. All four

characters love life in their own way, but the difference in their outlooks can be explained by

their varying capacities for lucidity and their sensitivities to the solidarity of mankind.

Rambert’s attempt to escape from Oran once the town is quarantined is ostensibly a cowardly

attempt to avoid the absurd. Perhaps it is cowardly, but Camus did not portray Rambert as a

coward. For instance, Rambert mentions to Dr. Rieux that his attempt to escape is not

motivated by self preservation, and his justification for this is his participation in the Spanish

Civil War on the side of the Republicans.

Rambert, by fighting against Franco, serves as the embodiment of resistance to tyranny, and

can hardly be labeled a coward. Indeed, Dr. Rieux is sympathetic to Rambert’s cause because

he acknowledges the necessity of happiness and love. These are values of the present, and

although they are individual, and maybe even selfish, Camus indicated that man is entitled to

opt for love and happiness. In a world characterized as absurd, the struggle for love and

happiness amounts to rebellion. Camus described the “heartrendingly monotonous struggle

put up by some obstinate people like Rambert to recover their lost happiness

. . . While their resistance lacked the active virtues of the other . . . it bore witness, even in its

futility and in coherences, to a salutary pride.” (Resistance, Rebellion and Death Camus p79)

Rambert’s reaction to the absurd is an individual rebellion in the name of happiness, and

Camus suggested that this reaction is justified. Of course, Rambert comes to realize that the

existence of happiness and love for the entire town of Oran is in jeopardy, and he decides to

remain in Oran to work on Dr. Rieux’s sanitary squads. Originally fighting his own absurd

condition in the name of happiness, Rambert decides to fight for the collective happiness of

the townspeople. Through solidarity, Rambert discovers a cause that transcends him as an

individual, and by choosing to fight for the community rather than for his own happiness, he

discovers a productive outlet for his metaphysical impulse to rebel.

The narrator, Dr. Rieux serves as a perfect representation of authentic rebellion that is

lucid and limited. As a physician, Rieux is uniquely exposed to the realities of human

suffering and the ordering of the universe is clearly repulsive to him. Camus wrote, “Rieux

believed himself to be on the right road—in fighting against creation as he found it. (Myth of

Sisyphus p127) He witnesses death and suffering regularly through his occupation, and these

forces shape the world in which he lives. God, for Rieux, is the embodiment of an unjust,

irrational ordering of existence. He poses a rhetorical question to his friend, Jean Tarrou,

“since the order of the world is shaped by death, mightn’t it be better for God if we refuse to

believe in Him and struggle with all our might against death, without raising our eyes toward

the heaven where He sits in silence?”( The Plague p127)

Struggling against the incomprehensible absurdity of existence, Rieux is undoubtedly the

quintessential rebel. The importance of Dr. Rieux for the concept of rebellion is not only the

diligence of his rebellion, but the limited nature of his resistance. When the Jesuit, Father

Paneloux tells Rieux that they are both fighting for man’s salvation, Rieux corrects him,

“Salvation’s much too big a word for me. I don’t aim so high. I’m concerned with man’s

health; and for me his health comes first.” .”( The Plague p209 ) Salvation is a value of the

distant future; health is a value of the present. Rieux’s lucidity grounds him to the immediacy

of the situation, and although the absolute vigilance of the plague prevents him from healing

absolutely, he doggedly persists. The seemingly futile duties of the “sanitary squads” reflect

the necessity of rebellion in the name of present life.

“The essential thing was to save the greatest possible number of persons from dying

and being doomed to separation. And to do this there was only one resource: to fight the plague. There was nothing admirable about this attitude; it was merely logical.” ( The

Plague p127)

Rieux does not consider himself a hero or a saint. His chronicle of the plague merely

represents the absurdity of existence and the logical reaction to that absurdity. “It could be

only the record of what had had to be done, and what assuredly would have to be done again

in the never ending fight against terror and its onslaughts, despite their personal afflictions,

by all who, while unable to be saints but refusing to bow down to pestilences, strive their

utmost to be healers.”. (The Plague p191)

Rieux’s friend, Tarrou, is clearly one who strives to be a healer, but his aim is somewhat

more absolute than Rieux’s. Tarrou is more interested in eradicating the

plague from the face of the earth. Camus presented Tarrou as an utterly decent man, albeit

one who is susceptible to lapses

in lucidity. He appreciates the everyday pleasures of life. “Good-humoured, always ready

with a smile, he seemed an addict of all normal pleasures without being their slave.” .( The

Plague p192)

When Tarrou recognizes the onslaught of the plague; he takes it upon himself to assemble

volunteers into sanitary squads. Tarrou’s enthusiasm is admirable and his display of solidarity

with the townspeople is unquestionable. Unlike Rieux, however, Tarrou’s rebellion more

closely resembles atonement than protest.

Tarrou admits to Dr. Rieux that he once had a form of plague. As a young man, appalled

by the cruelty of capital punishment, Tarrou joined a revolutionary sect in Hungary with

intentions of abolishing the death penalty. Tarrou admits that his metaphysical impulse to

rebel crossed over into the political realm.

“To my mind the social order around me was based on the death sentence, and by fighting the

established order I’d be fighting against murder.”( The Plague p193) Tarrou admits that he

acquiesced to the inevitability of some executions in the name of “building up a new world in

which murder would cease to be.” ( The Plague p193) This is a perfect example of the

dangers involved with any rebellion that does not stay true to its origins. Tarrou’s lapse in

lucidity caused him to take part in the very injustice against which he set out to fight. He

rebelled because he thought society was breaching a threshold of injustice, but in his

rebellion, he breached the same limit. He compromised the present value of human life for

the unattainable future value of a plague- free society. After witnessing an execution by firing

squad, he regained his lucidity and spent the rest of his life trying to avoid the plague

of rationally justified murder. He recounts his lesson learned to Rieux (The Plague p

250.)

“The good man, the man who infects hardly anyone, is the man who has the fewest lapses of

attention.”.( The Plague p253 )Thus, Tarrou spends the rest of his days trying to find peace

and tirelessly avoiding murder. He asks Rieux. “Can one be a saint without God?—that’s the

problem, in fact the only problem, I’m up against today.” .( The Plague p253 ) Tarrou finds

no answer to this inquiry, and his life is one of the last claimed by the plague. Again, Camus

suggested that heroics and saintliness is above the scope of human possibility. Dr. Rieux

realized this. He answered Tarrou, “Heroism and sanctity don’t really appeal to me, I

imagine. What interests me am being a man.” .( The Plague 253)

M. Cottard, the final character examined here, represents the historical expression of

metaphysical rebellion. The reader makes his acquaintance shortly after he tries to hang

himself. Cottard is distressed because a crime from his past has been uncovered by the town

officials and he fears he will be arrested. When the plague sets in, Cottard’s mood changes

dramatically because the officials are preoccupied and because all the townspeople are

similarly imperiled. Tarrou, who observes Cottard’s behaviour closely, discovers that Cottard

values solidarity. “The thing he’d most detest is being cut off from others; he’d rather be one

of a beleaguered crowd than a prisoner alone.”He relishes the fact that “everyone’s in the

same boat.”( The Plague p195)

Cottard takes advantage of the plague, and has no desire to see it end. If the plague

represents the Nazi occupation of France, Cottard is undoubtedly a Vichy collaborator.

Tarrou records in his journal, “In short, this epidemic has done him proud. Of a lonely man

who hated loneliness it has made an accomplice. . . . and doesn’t he relish his complicity”(

The Plague p196) Lonely before the start of plague and quarantine, Cottard discovers a

morbid solidarity in the town of Oran because the overwhelming absurdity of his own life is

shared by all. What he fails to realize is that the plague which he welcomes can destroy the

very solidarity that he values. For Camus, who clearly sympathizes with Cottard’s

unfortunate situation, his complicity in the plague is more despicable than the unmentioned

crime of his past. “His only real crime is that of having in his heart approved of something

that killed off men, women, and children.” ( The Plague p 202))

Cottard would rather see the world destroyed than to be deprived of the solidarity that he

values absolutely. This is the reason that he passionately relates to Dr. Rieux that what Oran

really needs is “An earthquake! A big one!”.(The Plague p204))

The depiction of resistance in The Plague is meant to highlight the usefulness of rebellion

against the absurd. In fact, the entire novel can be read as a myth concerning the nostalgic

human being’s never-ending battle against the absurd. Because of the variety of characters,

Camus was able to illustrate many possible forms of rebellion and resistance. “Just as danger

provided man with the unique opportunity of seizing awareness, so metaphysical revolt

extends awareness to the whole of experience. . . . That revolt is the certainty of a crushing

fate, without the resignation that ought to accompany it.(Myth of Sisyphus p54)

Bibliography

Camus, Albert The Myth of Sisyphus Penguin London 1995

Camus, Albert The Plague Penguin London 1992

Camus Albert Resistance, Rebellion, and Death: Essays Hamish Hamilton, London, 1961

Lulu M. Haroutunian Albert Camus and the White Plague MLN, Vol. 79, No. 3, French Issue (May, 1964), pp. 311-315

Louis R. Rossi Albert Camus: The Plague of Absurdity The Kenyon Review, Vol. 20, No. 3 (Summer, 1958), pp. 399-422