Ok so maybe happy isn't the right word but still. The old guy with no name that Tarrou talks about who spits on cats, though what he is doing is horrible, I like reading about it. Cottard has a lot of problems but that just makes him fun to read about as well.
Let's start with the old guy. The old guy spits on cats, which is bad, but he did it really meticulously. He would drizzle shredded papers to attract their attention before spitting at them, although once the plague came he was not able to attack the cats anymore. The great attention to detail, adding this completely unnecessary character was something I liked. When he didn't actually appear at the end this really made me sad. Though that is good for the poor cats, it makes me a little sad that such a great useless character has either died or will not appear again as they are an old man who doesn't really go anywhere anyways.
Cottard is just full of problems. I mean, first he tried to kill himself because of an unknown crime, then when things seam to be going well some random men approach him and he runs away and then he randomly starts shooting people and killed a dog. There is no way to really know what he did that makes him so scared when those people approach him but likely it is something involving smuggling? I say that since during the plague he connects people to other people who can get them stuff or help them escape. After running away he pops up after a shooting incident?? This seems completely random but then the police bring in multiple machine guns to subdue him and still nobody dies besides the dog. Then Rieux and Grand ignore him as he gets dragged past. I enjoy this scene so much just because it is ridiculous. At the same time though I can totally see this happening in america and that part makes me sad but still. This is why Cottard and the old guy are my two favorite characters.
I agree that Cottard's ending scene threw me for a loop, it seemed to rush from one thing to the next. I think that Cottard's crime wasn't something that happened during the plague, but something that had happened earlier, but he hadn't been arrested earlier because they didn't have the manpower. Now that he realizes the plague is ending, and that the administration will be the same as before and will be trying to arrest him, he kind of flipped. I see it as him kind of snapping at the knowledge that he's going to lose his freedom and possibly life, and so just starts shooting and boarding himself in his house to keep the police away.
ReplyDeleteI think that the two characters you've chosen are certainly a couple of the most morally bankrupt. Sure, there's Rambert's desire to escape, but I find that to be more forgivable seeing as he never actually could. And I also don't mean to compare animal abuse to what appears to be (attempted) murder, but it is interesting that you've chosen a couple characters that almost seem to mirror each other; one that is grateful of the plague so he can escape his nefarious deeds, and another that is also kept from his doing his not super great actions but is less thankful of it.
ReplyDeleteI agree that they would be some of the most morally bankrupt, but I think that's just what makes them entertaining to read. Rambert was a much more interesting character to read when he was actively trying to escape opposed to afterward. I think the selfish desires or morally wrong actions made characters a lot more interesting in this book.
DeleteAlthough both characters you mentioned could be seen as entertaining, I mostly found myself frustrated with them. For the reason that they didn't really provide anything constructive to society, in fact, they usually disrupted it or something similar, I found both Cottard and the old guy to be quite annoying throughout the story. To be fair, I find a lot of characters frustrating in books, but these are my thoughts on Cottard and the old guy in particular.
ReplyDeleteI also read the final scene as ridiculous. I can understand his motivations and such but it is just a strange scene. He made a lot of money during the plague and all the public officials were looking the other way. It is very strange and I don't think I fully understand Cottard's character. The old man on the other hand, I disagree with your assessment. I did not really like him but I think I still would be sad if Tarrou definitively said that he was dead.
ReplyDeleteI see why you would find them funny characters and in some ways I agree. If they were completely omitted from the story, no plot points would majorly change which, to me, makes them all the more intriguing. Their actions are so ridiculous it's entertaining for me to wonder why Camus added them to the story in the first place. With that being said, I don't like their actions at all. Yet, something about them is still strangely interesting to me.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what the purpose of focusing on those characters was, since they don't contribute much to the arc of plague cases. However, they do kind of serve as a benchmark for ordinary citizens, since they react in more irrational and human ways than the heroes spearheading the fight against the plague. Maybe minor characters like this help balance the story by showing how humans don't always behave predictably in times of crisis.
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