Plague
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In the society that we live in today, it is fair to say that the driving force is making money and always striving to attain more. We have been brought up to learn, that in a sense wealth brings power and happiness, and as long as you have money you will be happy. The world is filled with greed and selfish people. The average work week in the western countries is forty hours per week, leaving little time for one's own needs and pleasures. It is clear that in the time of the "The Plague" the people of Oran had the same motivation in life. "Our citizens work hard, but solely with the object of getting rich. Their chief interest is in commerce, and their chief aim in life is, as they call it, is "doing business."
Camus designs and portrays this society to be in direct parallel, with the type of society that we live in today. The citizens reserve their weeknights after work to stroll down the boulevard and go for coffee, and Saturdays and Sundays as days in which they can fulfill their own needs that were brought about from their strenuous work week that they had endured. It is also interesting to see how Camus molds each character to be very different but yet very much the same in a time of crisis as we will see later on in the essay...