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Defoe, the author of “Robinson Crusoe”, also wrote a historical record of the 1665 London plague through research into data, memory, and popular anecdotes.
More than 300 years ago, London was caught up in the Great Plague. Regarding that historical record, the most read today is the “A Journal of the Plague Year” written by Daniel Defoe, author of Robinson Crusoe. ) The book is an early model of the “faction” genre written after the event, but based on rigorous data research. And the description of self-isolation and maintaining social distance makes us feel more familiar.
When the “Great Plague” broke out in 1665, Defoe was just a boy. The book he wrote after becoming an adult is a mixed work of investigating data, personal memories, imagination, and a story that can be told by an uncle who had been living in London at the time. However, it has become a classic record in that story, and the scenes and remarks written on it will resonate with readers in 2020.
Today’s commentators have pointed out that if the 2019 coronavirus epidemic (COVID-19) occurred before the social media revolution, how different will our experience be. In 1722, Defoe reminded his readers that in his childhood, newspapers hardly existed.
However, he used the skills of a writer to provide readers with a detailed picture of how bubonic plague has affected communities without medical assistance.
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An illustration about the Great Plague in London shows a house with a sick person, with cross marks on the door.
At the beginning of the novel, Defoe wrote: “The face of London has changed strangely … the sound of mourning can be heard on the streets.”
Defoe at the time would not know of any rules such as a two-meter safe distance, but his story related the daily operations experienced at the time, and he felt too familiar.
Dr. Paula Backscheider from Auburn University in the United States is a research expert at Defoe. She said the data research done in her book is so impressive that it still feels nuanced after three centuries.
“It’s like what the New Journalism of Tom Wolfe and others brought us in the 1970s. There is extraordinary in-depth data research and abundant interview anecdotes, And stories of human nature that history often overlooks. “
He noted that Defoe had a certain agreement with those who warned the world not to prepare for something like the new coronavirus.
“His book was born in 1722, and just before that, there was a terrible plague in Marseille, where at least 40,000 people died. He was using historical lessons from the 1660s to warn him of the times.”
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A house in the village of Im in Derbyshire, England, was isolated after being found infected with the plague.
The book begins with a basic question, and that is what was often asked earlier this year: where is the source of this disaster?
“… Some people say it came from Italy … Others say it came from Candia; others say it came from Cyprus. It doesn’t matter where it came from …” Fu wrote this.
In Defoe’s records, all the houses with plague-infected people were sealed at the time and a red cross was painted on the door. In theory, these people are not allowed to leave, but Defoe describes some cases of people successfully escaping from their homes through various tricks, violence, or bribes.
Then the matter quickly expanded to the issue of self-isolation between healthy and uninfected people.
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“After discovering that I often go out on the street, he (a friend) is very anxious to persuade me to lock him and his family in the house and not let anyone out of the house,” Defoe wrote, “but because I didn’t accumulate food, It is impossible for us not to go out at all … “
Defoe also foresees the problem that we are also concerned with today, namely asymptomatic carriers.
“A person can be really infected without knowing it, but go abroad. As a healthy person, he can go everywhere and transmit the plague to a thousand people, and then if he is the person who transmitted the infection.” People who are still infected don’t know it, “he said.
In addition, he also described how store owners designed a 17th-century version of contactless payments.
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Daniel Defoe shows in his book the rare social conscience of his time.
“The butcher will not touch the money, but will let the money pickle, which is specially designed for this purpose. Buyers also always bring small coins that can generate various amounts of change, So there is no need to change They also contain bottles for spices and perfumes. “
Dr. Beckschide said most historians agree with Defoe’s description of the nightmarish impact of the bubonic plague in London.
“I think he looks a lot more like a journalist than a novelist, and he never exaggerates. He is not trying to create a chilling effect. The reality itself is already terrifying enough. Sociologists and infectious disease scientists will also cite Serves as a source of information. “
Furthermore, she believes that one of the reasons the book is illuminating us under the current crisis is that Defoe has a serious attitude towards science.
“An author from the Renaissance era would say that everything that happened at that time was a matter of God. But the narrator in this story, only known as” HF “in the book, has a scientific way of observing and recording an obsession. “
“In the story, he knows he should leave London, but, like Defoe, there is an intellectual connection and a curiosity to know what caused the plague.”
“Those narratives are modern, and even before it all happened this year, the book already had something to tell us.”
For HF, all we know is that he is a wealthy middle class harness dealer. Defoe displayed a social conscience that was rare in his time, pointing out that the working class is the most prone to suffering.
“It must be admitted that although the plague is found mainly among the poor, the poor are also the most desperate and brave. They continue their employment with some barbarian guts … They seldom take protective measures, and rush to any industry where they may be hired … “
By the end of 1665, the number of deaths had gradually decreased erratically, and finally approached zero.
Defoe is a very honest author. At the end of the story, he gave no simple conclusion: People began to understand the plague slowly, decades later.
However, he has written an outstanding historical record of the last great bubonic plague in the British Empire, and today, three centuries later, he still educates people who read it.
