The Apocalyptic Image of Pandemic: An Eco Critical Reading of Albert Camus the Plague Amal Hussein , Dr. Zohreh Taebi Noghondari , Dr.Rajaballi Askarzadeh Torghabeh Ferdowsi University of Mashhad,Iran Abstract This paper analyzes Albert Camus’ The Plague (1946) and its criticism of the anthropocentric and capitalist society through the lens of ecocriticism. The novel depicts the imaginary city of Oran, a port in Algeria, where the city environment encounters an unknown problem that ends up hitting the city with a lethal plague. The study is especially informed by the ecocritical ideas of Lawrence Buell and Cheryl Glotfelty to analyze the outbreak of the pandemic as an ecological crisis. Based on ecocriticism, nature and literature-as a cultural product-are interrelated to the extent that some theorists find nature more of a linguistic and cultural construction than a void space filled with landscapes, animals, and plants. Thus, it is assumed that an ecological crisis like the spread of the pandemic is not only affected as a result of human activities in disrupting natural order or ecosystem but equally through his mindset about nature. Also, the present study foregrounds the idea that the understanding of nature, assisted by its representations, determine show we make sense of and deal with the sufferings of the pandemic. Consequently, the literary text here will be examined on the basis of two main questions: (1) How is nature represented in the novel? and (2) How do our environmental images inform our responses to the pandemic? It is noteworthy that Camus’ narrative looks upon the environment beyond a setting or a backdrop for the plot. The findings show that in the Plague, there is some sense of the environment as a process rather than as a constantor given implicitly the text. This makes the fiction classified as an environmental text. This result, regarding the relationship of the natural world with human life in Camus’ works, is in accordance with earlier research that has understood his works as the topographical staging of perpetual struggle between the natural universe and the world of humans. However, it does not mean that the narrative offers a homogenous straightforward advocating of nature, but rather a complex view about the environment, including sympathy for the environment as well as examples of distinctions between humans and nonhumans. Keywords: Ecocriticism, ecological crisis, apocalyptic image, epidemic, The Plague.

Keywords