Dr. Rieux is a 35-year-old physician with broad shoulders and a rectangular face. Dedicated and pragmatic, he approaches the impending health crisis with strict adherence to duty. He prioritizes public health and common decency over sentimentality, functioning as a primary medical authority who pushes the local government to implement quarantine measures.

Tarrou is a visitor to Oran who spends his time closely observing the city's inhabitants and recording mundane details in his notebooks. Good-humored and independently wealthy, he finds Oran's obsession with commerce oddly fascinating. He possesses a strong aversion to injustice and the death penalty, prompting him to organize the volunteer sanitary squads to combat the disease.

Rambert is a small, determined Parisian journalist who finds himself trapped in Oran when the quarantine is enacted. Driven by his belief in the supreme value of individual happiness and romantic love, he is desperate to escape the city to reunite with his wife. He frequently clashes with authorities over what he perceives to be an unjust exile.

Grand is a humble middle-aged government clerk who lives a quiet and austere life. He suffers from a debilitating inability to find the right words, which has stalled his career and affected his personal life. In his spare time, he endlessly rewrites the opening sentence of an aspiring novel, seeking absolute literary perfection.

Cottard is a secretive loner and criminal who lives in constant fear of police investigation for an unnamed past crime. Unlike the rest of the city's residents, he thrives during the quarantine, capitalizing on the chaos to smuggle contraband and amass wealth on the black market. The plague offers him a reprieve from his legal anxieties.

Father Paneloux is a learned, militant Jesuit priest who commands great respect among Oran's citizens. He interprets the plague as a divine punishment sent by God to correct the apathy and sins of the populace. His unyielding faith serves as a severe ideological contrast to the secular, humanistic perspectives of the medical volunteers.

M. Othon is a strict, conservative local police magistrate known for his somber demeanor and black clothing. He maintains rigid social graces but treats his family with a cold, perfunctory politeness, often addressing them with unkind animal comparisons. The epidemic forces him into unexpected vulnerabilities.

Rieux's long-term patient is a 50-year-old man who has voluntarily spent the last 25 years in bed. He passes the time with the repetitive, seemingly meaningless task of transferring peas from one pan to another, using this activity to measure the passage of time.

A young, innocent boy subjected to his father's rigid household rules. He becomes a critical focus of the medical team's efforts when he contracts the disease, serving as a powerful symbol of unmerited suffering in the city.

The concierge of the building where Dr. Rieux lives. He is staunch in his denial of the emerging rat problem, chalking the dead rodents up to the work of young pranksters before falling ill himself.

A senior medical colleague of Dr. Rieux in Oran. He is instrumental in officially identifying the outbreak as the bubonic plague and dedicates himself to synthesizing an experimental serum to combat the disease.

A local smuggler with a countenance resembling a horse. He operates in the criminal underground of Oran and is sought out for his ability to illicitly move people across the quarantined city's borders.

Joseph Grand's estranged wife. Her departure from Grand's life remains a source of deep emotional pain, significantly influencing his struggles with self-expression.

Dr. Rieux's chronically ill spouse. Because she departs for a sanatorium just as the crisis begins, she is separated from her husband during the quarantine, a geographical divide that tests Rieux's stoicism.

Dr. Rieux's mother. She travels to Oran to manage his household after his wife departs for the sanatorium, providing quiet support during the crisis.

Rambert's wife who lives in Paris. Her absence is the primary driving force behind the journalist's frantic attempts to escape the quarantined city.