How did Albert Camus respond to the German occupation of France and French colonialism in his novel The Plague?

This project explores how Albert Camus grappled with the German occupation of France during World War II in addition to the anticolonial struggles for independence in North and West Africa. It is specifically interested in the contradictions between his response to the Occupation and his response to decolonization. The paper first considers the historical context of the French empire in the 40s and 50s and presents a brief biography of Camus and his philosophy before delving into a literary analysis of the text. There, it argues that Camus effectively criticizes the collaborative Vichy government’s use of denial through the lenses of the Church and of language. However, it then demonstrates Camus’s hypocrisy in failing to apply these same principles to decolonization movements by observing his contradictory perspective on nationhood and his lack of engagement with an anticolonial critique despite setting his novel in Algeria.