“though it is true all the people did not go out of the city of London, yet I may venture to say that in a manner all the horses did; for there was hardly a horse to be bought or hired in the whole city for some weeks.” “Some Endeavors were used to suppress the Printing of such Books as terrify’d the People, and to frighten the dispersers of them, some of whom were taken up, but nothing was done in it, as I am inform’d; The Government being unwilling to exasperate the People, who were, as I may say, all out of their Wits already.”
"A Journal of the Plague Year Quotes and Analysis". Here Defoe is able to articulate just how awful the plague is; he leaves off from the stories of heroism, charity, and endurance, and focuses on the sheer horror of this affliction. Despite all of these examples of disorder, however, what is Similar to the above quote, Defoe desires to present a picture of London during the plague that is characterized by endurance, resilience, morality, and rationality. He notes that the people no longer cared about the religious breaches that existed before the plague, and that they went to hear any preacher they liked without fear of criticism. A religious man himself and quite prone to feelings of guilt and uncertainty, H.F. lauds the embrace of religion he sees in many of his fellow denizens. Instead, people went crazy with the pain and the despair of not being able to ameliorate their suffering. They went on with the usual impetuosity of their tempers, full of outcries and lamentations when taken, but madly careless of themselves, foolhardy and obstinate, while they were well. Just a moment while we sign you in to your Goodreads account. A Journal of the Plague Year is an account, a "journal", of one man's experiences in the year 1665, in which the Great Plague struck the city of London. Many of the doctors fled, along with the rich and powerful; quacks preyed on the poor with their neverfail miracle drugs. Constructing Authenticity; Defoe's A Journal of the Plague Year: An Examination of the Effects of Apocalyptic Disease on Humanity A Journal of the Plague Year essays are academic essays for citation. Never made publick before Reread lines 23-49. is the narrator compassionate, aggressive or some combination of these? He rejects rumors of misconduct and mob-like behavior on the part of Londoners, and commends city officials for their swiftness in burying the dead, discernible humility, and willingness to keep supplies of food high for the poor and hungry citizens. They leave behind the bodies of their loved ones and commit violence against the watchmen told to guard their houses. “But it was impossible to beat anything into the heads of the poor. By the time Defoe was writing, however, newspapers had gained a new level of validity and ubiquity. “But I must go back here to the particular incidents which occur to my thoughts of the time of the visitation, and particularly to the time of their shutting up the houses in the first part of their sickness; for before the sickness was come to its height people had more room to make their observations than they had afterward; but when it was in the extremity there was no such thing as communication with one another, as before.” The novel is written in the first-person and chronicles the spread of the bubonic plague in London in 1665.
“while, and told them that London was the place by which they, that is, the townsmen of Epping, and all the country round them, subsisted; to whom they sold the produce of their lands, and out of whom they made the rents of their farms; and to be so cruel to the inhabitants of London, or to any of those by whom they gained so much, was very hard; and they would be loath to have it remembered hereafter, and have it told, how barbarous, how inhospitable, and how unkind they were to the people of London when they” Their response to the plague was not to confess their sins or to cry bitterly; they found it more consoling to rage against this unknowable, insurmountable tragedy. They confessed their sins and called for forgiveness and mercy from their maker. Churches and conventicles and synagogues were empty.
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“I could almost set down as many extravagant things done in the excess of their joy as of their grief; but that would be to lessen the value of it.” Without official ways in which to identify the plague's arrival, characteristics, and ways in which to combat it, the people of London were nearly pre-modern in their responses.