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Tesseract
5th September 2013, 00:55
Cottard is a character in a novel called The Plague, by Albert Camus. I’m writing this from memory so the descriptions here may be a little flawed, but no matter. Cottard was something of a reject of society, or at least a failure by default, not having found any success or repute in his lifetime. Deep in his middle age, he decided to end his meaningless and inglorious life by hanging himself in his sultry urban Algerian apartment, leaving a note on the door so that the police could find him. However, as fate would have it the attempt failed, to his embarrassment.

Around that time an outbreak of bubonic plague occurred in the city in which Cottard lived. The problem began as something very small, first dead rats in the streets, then it intensified with a death here and there, to dozens of deaths a day, before becoming an unstoppable disaster with hundreds of deaths every day. To contain the outbreak, checkpoints were set up at the city gates to enforce a near total quarantine.

As this disaster unfolded, Cottard’s malaise and abject misery, perhaps ennui, began to dissolve, and he began to behold the world and its events with a new interest. When the city went into lockdown, Cottard, somehow, got into the smuggling trade which sprang up in response to the quarantine. This elicit behaviour led him to thrive, somewhat financially and, more importantly, mentally and emotionally. Eventually the plague peaked and the highly abnormal mode of society began to recede into normality. Cottard expressed his view that it would be a shame when the whole thing came to an end, his new life would vanish with it.

Anyway, early in the novel one is lead to have sympathy for Cottard, he becomes something of a neutral side character featuring here and there in certain episodes. Towards the end he is portrayed as something of a villain, or rather, a contemptible figure, for his apparent emotional and lifestyle benefit from what was a tragic period. I kind of liked Cottard, who never really hurt anyone, throughout the entire novel, and as such felt that my own judgement had been condemned by the author at the end. The entire novel is a metaphor for something else, which, when considered, does bring into better clarity the error of Cottard’s ways, whether or not he was capable of anything better is another question.

I sometimes think of Cottard when contemplating the fragility of our own times, and the various calamities that, speculatively, could befall us. For those who relish the thrill of disorder, in longing for the house to come falling down, are we like Cottard? What do we do when it does fall down? And, for the prepared, during such a calamity, will one’s own salvation be tainted with the failure of the moral challenges that inevitably will present themselves?

skippy
5th September 2013, 03:09
The Stranger is another strange novel by Albert Camus. It deals about unexpected human behaviour in certain conditions and the state of absurdism in general. Interesting and profound stuff. Thanks Tesseract for bringing this up.

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GaelVictor
5th September 2013, 04:38
It(..)can bring out the very best in man.

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