Throughout the novel Camus utilizes Oran’s events, characters, and setting to underscore his stance toward human existence and individual responsibility. As a novelist, essayist, and philosopher living in Paris during and after World War II, Camus became part of (though later repudiated) the postwar existentialist cultural and philosophical movement, which places utmost significance in the freedom at the core of human existence—hence humanism as its precursor. Deeming this individual freedom foundational in all other values, existentialism addresses facets of modern life that humans face, such as angst, boredom, isolation, nothingness, terror, and the absurd. With each person forced to confront these components of life—itself intrinsically absurd—the only option for the existentialist is to act at all costs. For the existentialist, human essence isn’t innate; rather, it’s constructed through a lifetime of choices informing one’s personal actions.

In The Plague disease and quarantine push every character to make choices regarding crucial issues. Rieux, in following with his profession, chooses dutiful service in the public sphere over personal considerations, like nurturing his wife’s declining health. Tarrou, having left home at a young age, chooses a solitary, nomadic life, which affords him the freedom to fight murder and death wherever he goes.