Analysis Of Albert Camus 'The Plague'

Many novels are open to various interpretations, The Plague by Albert Camus is an example of a novel through which different levels of meaning are created within its pages. The book represents many interesting and contrasting levels of literary works containing both fiction and non-fiction, literal and figurative as well as concrete and metaphysical. Different readers of the novel have various understanding of the text depending on their viewpoints and believes. ‘The Plague is neither deeply rooted in the real stuff of life nor in the poetical matter of myth’ (Picon 147).’ Margaret Gray states that Camus further announced that the text has various levels of meaning and that “their dynamic oscillation between event and abstraction, literal and figurative meaning, chronicle and allegory…” (165). Camus himself gave the following explication of his novel The Plague, Oliver Todd states, ‘The Plague may be read in three different ways. It is at the same time a tale about an epidemic; a symbol of Nazi occupation (and incidentally the prefiguration of any totalitarian regime, no matter where), and thirdly, the concrete illustration of a metaphysical problem, that of evil’ (168). …show more content…
Hence I will further prove that the novel does not only have one literal meaning but many various meanings by briefly discussing the literal and metaphysical while concentrating on the allegorical