The Narrator as Special Pleader: The death of a child in La Peste

Abstract

This article examines the role of the narrator. He presents himself as a reasonable man, who is stirred to revolt against evil by the suffering that he observes. His principle concern is to witness to the truth so that others may do likewise. However, his agenda means that he is not as objective as he would have us believe. The truth that he tells is his truth and the novel bears the traces of a battle for truth in which competing narrators are one by one eliminated. In fact it can be argued that the narrator's account is compromised by the ambiguous relationship between himself and the plague.