Approach to La plague de Camus from thesemiotic proposal of Joseph Courtés

Aproximación a La peste de Camus desde la propuesta semiótica de Joseph Courtés

This article pretends to show the semiotic proposal of Joseph Courtés, applied to the literary work “The plague” by Albert Camus. To reach this objective, we will mainly focus on the three analysis levels propossed by Courtés in his work “Speech semiotic analysis” the figurative level, the tematic level and the axiological level, that allows the reading from three approaches. First, the figurative representation that we have of the phenomenon -the plague-, from the iconic or the abstract. Second, the tematic that holds the general proposal from the author and can be translated, in the case of The Plague, in the pandemic that took place in Oran, the scenario from the book. Third, the axiological, that faces the reader against the value judgements that assumes in front of the situations of the characters, and the ones from the reader himself. It seems as if an extreme situation was necessary to consider the importance of relfection, to consider the life of the other one, to contemplate life on another way, to face it with the sensibility of helping one to each other