Rieux discovers a dead rat in his building's stairwell and alerts the building's concierge.

Rieux's chronically ill wife departs Oran to receive treatment at a sanatorium in a neighboring city.

Oran's newspapers report that over 8,000 dead rats have been collected across the city.

The building concierge Michel dies from a mysterious fever, becoming the plague's first notable victim.

Rieux and Dr. Castel jointly conclude that the disease spreading through Oran is plague.

Local authorities place Oran under quarantine, sealing it off from the outside world.

Father Paneloux delivers a fiery sermon at a special mass, blaming Oranians' sins for the plague.

Tarrou forms a volunteer sanitary squad to fight the plague alongside Rieux's medical team.

The cemetery runs out of space and authorities resort to digging mass graves for the mounting dead.

Castel's experimental anti-plague serum fails to save Othon's young son, who dies in prolonged agony.

Father Paneloux falls ill and dies after refusing all medical treatment, deferring entirely to God's will.

Grand contracts the plague near Christmastime but makes a surprising and unexpected recovery.

Tarrou contracts the plague and dies despite fighting it with every last ounce of his strength.

Rieux receives news that his wife has died at the sanatorium, arriving the morning after Tarrou's death.

Oran reopens to the world and Rieux resolves to write a chronicle of the plague year for posterity.

The Plague follows Dr. Bernard Rieux as he discovers dead rats in Oran, a sign of catastrophe that residents and officials are slow to accept. When residents begin dying of a mysterious fever, Rieux and his colleague Dr. Castel identify the disease as plague and pressure the city's reluctant authorities to impose quarantine. Sealed off from the world, Oran endures months of rising death tolls, overflowing cemeteries, and collective despair as Rieux works around the clock alongside a volunteer sanitary squad. The epidemic claims key figures including Father Paneloux, Tarrou, and Rieux's own wife before the plague finally and inexplicably begins to recede. As Oran reopens to joyful crowds, Rieux — revealed as the chronicle's narrator — resolves to document the year's ordeal as a warning to future generations.

The headline events of Oran's plague from outbreak to liberation.

Cottard, fearing arrest for a past crime, attempts to hang himself and Grand summons Rieux for help.

Rieux's mother arrives in Oran to keep house for him while his wife is away at the sanatorium.

Rieux presents his medical findings to reluctant local officials, urging them to close the city immediately.

Quarantined residents are limited to 10-word telegrams as their only permitted form of outside communication.

Rambert implores Rieux to help him escape Oran to rejoin his wife in Paris, but Rieux refuses.

Dr. Castel begins working in his laboratory on developing an experimental anti-plague serum.

Martial law is declared as the plague moves from Oran's outskirts into the wealthier center of the city.

Some residents, driven to desperation, set fire to their own homes in attempts to purge plague germs.

Overcrowded mass graves are dug up and exhumed bodies are loaded onto trolleys bound for the crematorium.

Tarrou and Cottard attend an opera performance that ends in chaos when the actor playing Orpheus collapses from plague.

Paneloux delivers a second sermon urging his congregation to accept the innocent child's death as God's will.

Rambert chooses to remain in Oran and join the sanitary squad just as his long-awaited escape route is secured.

Magistrate Othon is sent to the municipal quarantine camp after exposure to the plague following his son's death.

Plague deaths begin to decline noticeably and rats start reappearing in the streets of Oran.

Cottard opens fire from his apartment window during the city's reopening celebrations and is violently arrested by police.

While Rieux battles the epidemic at its center, the lives of Oran's residents are upended in smaller but equally significant ways. Cottard's suspicious suicide attempt introduces a character who will perversely thrive during the catastrophe, and communications with the outside world are swiftly stripped away, leaving residents isolated and anxious. As the months drag on, desperate acts multiply — arson attacks, black market dealing, and a collapsed opera performance all paint a picture of a city pushed to its limits. Key relationships shift as Rambert ultimately abandons his escape plan to stand with the plague-fighters, and Othon, crushed by his son's death, is sent to a quarantine camp. The epidemic's final days bring cautious joy to Oran's streets but also Cottard's violent breakdown and arrest as his criminal past catches up with him.

The subplots and secondary moments that shaped Oran's long ordeal.

Rieux's elderly asthmatic patient casually mentions that rats have been emerging throughout the neighborhood.

Grand tells Rieux that his neighbor Cottard attempted suicide and is gripped by fear of a police investigation.

Rambert first meets Rieux while requesting information for a newspaper article on Oran's Arab population's living conditions.

Rieux declines to give Rambert the official documentation needed to secure his departure from quarantined Oran.

Cottard's anxiety lifts with quarantine underway, as police attention shifts away and black market profits begin to flow.

Rieux realizes his medical role has quietly shifted from healing plague patients to simply diagnosing their condition.

The municipal stadium is converted into an auxiliary quarantine center, with Othon spotted among those held in isolation.

Castel announces his anti-plague serum is finished and proposes testing it on the plague-stricken son of magistrate Othon.

Rieux and Paneloux clash sharply over whether a doctor can ever accept a child's agonizing death as an expression of divine will.

Rambert discovers that Rieux is also separated from his ill wife yet refuses to abandon his duty to the community.

Othon emerges from the quarantine camp as a visibly transformed man, vowing to return and honor his dead son's memory.

Tarrou reveals to Rieux that witnessing his father send men to their deaths shaped his lifelong war against injustice.

Tarrou and Rieux take a midnight swim together in the sea, sharing a rare and wordless moment of peace.

After recovering from plague, Grand feels a surge of hope and writes his first letter to his estranged wife Jeanne in years.

Rieux steps forward during a final house call to the elderly asthmatic and reveals himself as the chronicle's narrator.

Beneath the main sweep of events, The Plague turns on a series of quieter revelations and decisive moments that determine the characters' fates and beliefs. Early warnings about the rats go ignored, Cottard's criminal anxiety is first exposed, and Rambert's opening encounter with Rieux sets two very different philosophies in conflict. As quarantine deepens, pivotal choices emerge — Rieux refusing to help Rambert flee, Cottard seizing his criminal opportunity, and Rieux slowly realizing he can no longer heal, only diagnose. The ordeal peaks with Castel's serum test, a fierce philosophical clash between Rieux and Paneloux, and Tarrou's shattering personal confession about his father. A nighttime swim seals the novel's deepest friendship before the final losses, and at the close Rieux quietly steps forward to reveal himself as the voice behind the chronicle.

The key decisions, discoveries, and emotional shifts that defined the plague year.