In Paul's class yesterday we became engrossed in a conversation about writing in journals and why people blog online/ are now so open to expressing themselves and sharing with millions of strangers what they used to keep secret and so privately stored away.  After thinking about it more, I think that this conversation also connects to the second half of our discussion about The Plague. 

Coming out of class on Wednesday really made me think about how Frankenstein, (and really any other novel) could be presented in the future. I remembered this project that Professor Katherine Rowe showed me and it really got me thinking about the presentation of the novel. Frankenstein is presented in codex form where a reader simply picks up the book, reads and finishes it (hopefully) and close reads the text. While every reader can come up with their own interpretations, the gist of the book remains the same. The narrative is the same way, the characters are the same and the reader starts and finishes (given that the reader does finish) at the same points.

In Professor Dalke’s Thursday discussion section, we explored the idea of solidarity in times of struggle and talked about a lot of different scenarios in which we, like Rambert, might be tempted to leave a difficult situation. The difficulty of being separated from one’s homeland because of a difficult situation, however, seems to be a problem even for the people who remain in Oran, for the place they are staying is not like the one that they knew before The Plague descended upon the city. They are transformed and develop a different relationship to the space they inhabit; the disease fundamentally transforms their relationship to their city.

In our small group today, we discussed justice and whether justice is impartial. Can we make accommodations for others while being just? Does justice require accommodations to be just? My first answer was that justice cannot make accommodations to be just, and in demanding that justice also be kind that we confused it with fairness or humanity. But then I decided to consult our favorite source, the OED. The OED online lists the meaning of justice as "The quality of being (morally) just or righteous; the principle of just dealing; the exhibition of this quality or principle in action; just conduct; integrity, rectitude."

 After our class discussion last week, I kept thinking about how crucial the epigraph seemed to me with regards to how it changed my reading of Camus's work, and how it didn't seem "accurate" in this light that certain editions leave it out.