Extended Essay La Peste/The Plague by Albert Camus Research Question Help

[IsobelCBL]

I've barely started my EE and right now I want to write about themes of humanism and absurdism in the book "La Peste" (The Plague). I don't really know how to phrase the research question though because I want to do a comparison of humanism and absurdism in the book, but I don't really know if that would work?

Can I do a comparison of two themes in the same book?

Should I find a different topic or how can I work around this?

Thanks for any help!

ps: it's a French B extended essay.

[Blackcurrant]

It depends. What are you hoping to find out with this comparison ?

These are not properly "themes" anyway. Much in the same way that "love" is not a theme but a subject or key term. To identify theme, you want to put your finger on a defining conflict or crux and express it as a sentence or phrase: "Love that struggles against religious persecution / tradition / ethnic divide" would be one such theme (for another work). Or "love confronts materialism" ... So "love", by itself, expresses little in terms of theme.

Try to settle on a theme that incorporates both philosophies if you really want to discuss these at length. So my first question will be relevant here too.

But will this mean you intend to use the novel merely as a springboard to investigating two different philosophies? You want to be careful not to get sidetracked into doing that.

I am assuming you are doing a category 3... If not, the question is: Are these philosophies even expressions of the culture you are investigating? French culture? Perhaps they are, somehow.

It sounds like you've got an interesting subject, at any rate. You'll need to fly it by your thesis advisor, so that's where you'll get confirmation of its validity for French B.

Edited October 29, 2013 by Blackcurrant