	At the very end of the novel, Rieux finds himself being drawn into a crowd of jubilant citizens, celebrating the defeat of the plague. He distances himself from the crowd and in so doing, he observes that it is only those who depended on love to get through the plague who celebrate. He considers their desires to be “limited” but thinks it is right that they should “enter, if only now and then, into their reward” (301). He resolves at this point to make a record of his experiences during the plague. He explains that, while it is impossible to be a saint, people, “in the never ending fight against terror,” must always “strive their utmost to be healers” (308). Finally, Rieux makes the observation that the people celebrating must not know anything of the nature of plague. The plague “never dies or disappears for good,” but has the ability to “lie dormant” and undetected for years (308). Therefore, the world is at constant risk of another plague epidemic, and defeating it once is not a lasting victory but a temporary one. Therefore, Rieux sees no reason for celebration. The people celebrating in the streets are the bystanders of tomorrow—those who will be unprepared for another coming of the plague. Rieux instead greets the end of the plague with a weary satisfaction, making sure to never let himself slip into complacency—as the plague could strike again without warning.
In studying the Holocaust from a psychological perspective, the bystander is an incredibly difficult person to understand—but Camus uses The Plague to suggest that their motivation sprung from simple self-interest. It is simple to understand why someone would not risk their life for a reason they could not see or understand. Camus suggests that the only type of hero that could exist during the Holocaust was the existential hero—someone who did not care about personal reward. According to Camus, the bystanders were prevented from being saviors by their solipsism.




	Nathaniel Hawthorne joined the Brook Farm community in 1841, the year of its founding, and kept a journal of his experiences there. From April 13th, 1841 through September 3rd of the same year, he documented his daily experiences on Brook Farm. Hawthorne left the community after a short five months. He was initially excited about the labor component of his stay there, and wrote, “I shall make an excellent husbandman,--I feel the original Adam reviving within me”.  Over time, his excitement was worn down. By May, he skipped work to read—“I intend to keep myself on the sick-list this one day longer, more especially as I wish to read Carlyle on Heroes”. By June, his outlook had made a one-hundred-eighty-degree shift, and he wrote of Brook Farm with loathing disdain. He used extremes and hyperboles to justify his departure from the community. 