A Journal Of The Plague Year

“The Apprehensions of the People, were likewise strangely encreas’d by the Error of the Times; in which, I think, the People from what Principle I cannot imagine, were more adicted [sic] to Prophesies, and Astrological Conjurations, Dreams, and Old Wives Tales, than ever they were before or sense.”

The narrator notes that, at the beginning of the plague, superstition, and a belief in the supernatural is on the rise. He claims he “cannot imagine” why people are looking for signs at this time, although he himself is looking for signs from God. This passage also demonstrates Defoe’s general style: long sentences divided by semicolons.

“With what blind, absurd, and ridiculous Stuff, these Oracles of the Devil pleas’d and satisfy’d the People, I really know not, but certain it is, that innumerable Attendants crouded about their Doors every Day; […] there was no Remedy for it, till the Plague itself put an End to it all.” 

The narrator criticizes the purveyors of dreams and signs, associating them with the devil. While he has some criticism for people’s gullibility, he believes that those who take advantage of the poor are truly evil. He compares their wares to a “sickness” that, just like the plague, needs a remedy.

“[People] poison’d themselves before-hand, for fear of the Poison of the Infection, and prepar’d their Bodies for the Plague, instead of preserving them against it.” 

The narrator indicates that the “cures” sold by some “physicians” were, in fact, poisons. He furthers his critique of all those who took advantage of the poor.

“I shall not be supposed to lessen the Authority of Capacity of the Physicians, when, I say, that the Violence of the Distemper, when it came to its Extremity, was like the Fire the next Year.” 

The narrator compares the plague to the London Fire on several occasions. Both are destructive forces of nature that are near-impossible to fight and which take many lives.

“This shutting up of houses was at first counted a very cruel and Unchristian Method, and the poor People so confin’d made bitter Lamentations: Complaints of the Severity of it, were also daily brought to my Lord Mayor, of Houses causelessly, (and some maliciously) shut up.”

The narrator begins to consider whether or not it was right to shut up the infected and their families in their homes. He emphasizes that it is an unpopular action, and that many believe it was done to families who were not even afflicted.

“[F]or here were just as many Prisons in the Town, as there were Houses shut up; and as the People shut up or imprison’d so, were guilty of no Crime, only shut up because miserable, it was really more intolerable to them.” 

The narrator continues his consideration of the process of shutting up houses and compares the families who are shut up to the wrongly imprisoned. He suggests that the practice is in a sense unjust: the prisoners are bound to rebel against the systems that wrongfully punishes them.

“People that were infected, and near their End, and delirious also, run to those Pits wrapt in Blankets, or Rugs, and throw themselves in, and as they said, bury themselves.” 

This description of the burial pits outside the city demonstrates the intensity of the plague. It also emphasizes the delirium of the infected. The sight of people running through the streets and throwing their bodies into a pile of the dead is grotesque in the extreme. 

“This may serve a little to describe the dreadful condition of that Day, tho’ it is impossible to say any Thing that is able to give a true Idea of it to those who did not see it, other than this; that it was indeed very, very, very dreadful, and such as no Tongue can express.”

The narrator shares many gruesome descriptions of the plague’s effects on the body; suicide and murder as a result of delirium and infection; and burial pits. Yet he claims that it is still difficult to give any idea of just how horrible London was at that time. Instead of going further into detail, he emphasizes its dreadfulness with the repetition of the word “very.” 

“Their Story has a Moral in every Part of it, and their whole Conduct, and that of some who they join’d with, is a Pattern for all poor Men to follow, or Women either, if ever such a Time comes again.” 

The narrator shares many anecdotes of survival and of death. He prefaces the story of John the Biscuit Baker with this quote. This is by far the longest such anecdote in the novel, and he tells us “every part of it” has a moral that can be extracted. This suggests that the incident is worth contemplating and interpreting at length.

“[I]n one Tent or Hutt, was found a Man dead, and on the Gate, of a field just by, was cut with his Knife in uneven Letters, the following Words, by which it may be suppos’d the Other Man escap’d, or that one dying first, the other bury’d him as well as he could; O mIsErY! We BoTH ShaLL DyE, WoE, WoE.” 

The narrator states that the practice of going off into the country was common. While John and his party survived, he here shares the story of a pair who were less lucky. The carving illustrates the hopelessness of the infected, but the presence of just one corpse next to the carving suggests that some did, indeed, survive.

“The Master […] was going to lay his hands on him, and thro’ him down Stairs, being in a Passion, but then considering a little the Condition of the Man and the Danger of touching him, Horror seiz’d his Mind, and he stood still like one astonished.”

The narrator tells the story of a seemingly-well man who goes into his friends’ house and announces to the man and his children that he is about to die of the plague. The master of the house is enraged that his friend has put his family in such danger; however, he cannot punish his friend without risking his own life.

“I have only to add, that I do not relate this with any more than some of the other, as a Fact within my own Knowledge, so as that I can vouch the Truth of them […] but it may serve the many desperate Things which the distress’d People falling into.” 

The narrator concedes that many of his stories may not be factual in generality or in their details. He conveys that the “truth” is not as important as is understanding the depths of despair and distress to which people fell. Even if these events did not occur, many people found them at least plausible.

“[W]hen I say people abandon’d themselves to Despair […] I mean a Despair of their being able to escape the Infection, or to out-live the Plague, which they saw was so raging and so irresistible in its Force, that indeed few People that were touch’d with it in its height, about August, and September, escap’d.” 

The narrator writes that, at the height of the plague, the disease became so rampant and deadly that people gave up all hope of escaping. At later points, the plague’s mortality rate is not so high as in the fall.

“[T]his very Thing had a strange Effect among us […] it made them bold and venturous, they were no ore shy of one another, or restrained within Doors, but went anywhere and everywhere […] one would say to another, I do not ask you how you are, or say how I am, it is certain we shall all go, so ‘tis no Matter who is sick or who is sound.”

The plague’s strength had a paradoxical effect. Whereas people were incredibly cautious and took preventative measures at the outbreak of the disease, once it strengthened, people gave up their cautiousness. This quote demonstrates a spirit of camaraderie in the shared fate of death.

“[I]t I chiefly owning to our easy Scituation [sic] in Life […] that our Breaches are fomented, ill Blood continued, Prejudices, Breach of Charity and of Christian Union so much kept and so far carry’d on among us, as it is: Another Plague Year would reconcile all these Differences.”

Reflecting on the camaraderie that was present during the height of the plague, the narrator suggests that people’s divisions are only possible because of their comfort. When mankind must face great strife, divisions between men fall away.

“[I]t is impossible to know the infected People from the sound, or that the infected people should perfectly know themselves

The narrator pushes back on the belief that infected people sought to infect others. He explains that the infection could go undetected for so long that many who thought themselves “well” were in fact infected.

“I must leave it as a Prescription, (viz.) that the best Physick against the Plague is to run away from it.”

After considering all the measures taken to prevent the plague—shutting up houses, taking preventative medicine, isolating oneself and one’s family—the narrator concludes that the only method that can truly combat the plague is getting away from it.

“I suppose them to be utterly ignorant of their own Condition; for if they really knew their Circumstances to be such as indeed they were, they must have been a kind of willful Murtherers, if they would have gone Abroad among healthy People.”

The narrator returns again to the question of whether the ill cared about infecting the well. He suggests that ill people who went out with full knowledge of their sickness were murderers, so certain was death. 

“[M]any People had the Plague in their very Blood, and preying upon their Spirits, and were in themselves but walking putrified Carcasses, whose Breath was infectious, and their Sweat Poison; and yet were as well to look on as other People, and even knew it not themselves.”

This graphic description reveals the intense infectiousness of the plague, its devastating effect on the body, and the difficulty of knowing whether one is sick or well. 

“This immediately filled every Bodies Mouths with one Preparation or other […] insomuch that if we came to go into a Church […] there would be such a Mixture of Smells at the Entrance, that it was much more strong, tho’ perhaps not so wholesome, than if you were going into an Apothecary’s or Druggist’s Shop; in a Word, the whole Church was like a smelling Bottle.”

The narrator discusses some common preventative medicines: each doctor prescribed a different perfumed oral medication. There were so many different such medications, and their use was so common, that public spaces, including churches, reeked of them.

“I wish I cou’d say, that as the City had a new Face, so the Manners of the People had a new Appearance.” 

The narrator laments the results of the plague. Although people shared a feeling of camaraderie at its height, that feeling dissolves as soon as the disease abates. The lesson from God goes unlearned.

“[T]he People of London thought themselves so Plague-free now, that they were past all Admonitions; they seem’d to depend upon it, that the air was restor’d, and that the Air was like a Man that had the Small Pox, not capable of being infected again.”

The narrator blames the people of London for taking insufficient caution as the plague abates. Relieved by the dwindling death county, people seem to believe that the “air” is cured. The narrator describes in many places, however, that the air was never sick, and that the risk of catching the disease through contact remains just as high.

“The Author of this Journal, lyes buried in [Old Bethlem], being at his own Desire, his Sister having been buried there a few Years before.”

The narrator describes the new burial grounds in London and states that he himself is dead in one of them. This may be a metafictional reference to the burying place of Daniel Defoe’s uncle, whose journals he consulted when writing this novel, or it may simply be a morbid acknowledgement that even those who escaped the plague will lie buried in the same cemeteries in due time.