After recording the particulars of Oranian burials in a complete chapter, in fact in a complete section, Rieux now takes up the situation of those who were living during the period of lethargy. The first half of Chapter 19 describes more fully the drugged state of general despondency, and brings us up to date on the principal characters. It especially examines Dr. Rieux’s responses to the exhausting spiritual and physical fatigue. The second half of the chapter is quite different. As a contrast, Cottard, from Tarrou’s notebook sketches, is presented, still happy and smiling.
The lethargy refuses to lift itself from Oran. Even the October rains do not cleanse the town of its hold and the townspeople continue to exist for the moment at hand, but see their present without a context. Rieux uses, as an analogy, soldiers held under continual fire and strain. Both suffer similar stupors, he says. This lethargic state of mind lulls Grand into sentimentality
he talks of Jeanne more often and feels deeper remorse. Rambert continues to maintain some hope for escape. Tarrou loses the colorful diversity that was in his early notebooks. Now his subject is primarily Cottard. The narrator reveals several unexpected reactions of his own — unexpected because he is usually reticent about his personal life and unexpected because they are confessions of his feelings of loss.
Rieux has so successfully convinced us of his physical and mental strength, neglecting his personal complaints, that he sometimes loses a sense of human individuality. Here he modifies the impression of a superhuman with devoted perseverance. He admits that the
plague has fiercely exhausted him and that he has had to harden himself as a preventive against collapse. Under the strain of growing deaths and the increasing ineffectiveness of his serum, he feels less and less competent. At the same time, he questions whether or not in the face of this growing futility, his decision to send his wife to a faraway mountain sanitarium was wise. He is certain that he could have helped her make a good recovery.
