How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph). We used Stuart Gilbert's translation.
Quote #25
At the end of the plague, with its misery and privations, these men and women had come to wear the aspect of the part they had been playing for so long, the part of emigrants whose faces first, and now their clothes, told of the long banishment from a distant homeland. Once plague had shut the gates of the town, they had settled down to a life of separation, debarred from the living warmth that gives forgetfulness of all. (5.4.11)
The citizens of Oran have become so used to confinement that they have forgotten what it is like to function without bars on the window, so to speak. Yet, ironically, they didn’t really get out of Oran much before the plague started.
Quote #26
All the same, following the dictates of his heart, he has deliberately taken the victims’ side and tried to share with his fellow citizens the only certitudes they had in common—love, exile, and suffering. (5.5.2)
The narrator began the novel speaking of love, work, and death, and now it's love, exile, and suffering. Hmm…