Defoe’s Plague depictions have strong echoes of today
“Robinson Crusoe” was the story of a man self-isolating in 1704, in his case on a desert island. Readers stuck at home, count yourselves lucky.
Daniel Defoe had probably based his 1719 novel on the story of marooned sailor Alexander Selkirk. Did you know that the always restive Selkirk developed romantic interests on his desert island hideaway? Yes, goats. So says his biographer.
Defoe’s 1722 followup was “A Journal of the Plague Year,” an autofiction look back to the plague that had struck England and elsewhere 50 years earlier. From our standpoint, it’s remarkable how Londoners in 1665 behaved very much as we are behaving now. It takes more than 355 years for people to change habits.
Reading “A Journal” this week, I was struck by the parallels between Defoe’s plague notes as he walked about the city and our own tales of the coronavirus lockdown.
Daniel Defoe adds up the daily numbers: “There died near 400 of the plague in the two parishes of St. Martin and St. Giles-in-the-Fields only, there died in the parish of Aldgate but four, in the parish of Whitechapel three.”
Defoe sees mad Twitter-like theories abound: “Some endeavours were used to suppress the printing of such books as terrified the people but the
Government being unwilling to exasperate the people, who were, as I may say, all out of their wits already.”
Defoe frets over job losses, excoriates Big Landlord: “Maidservants especially, and menservants [asked] ‘Oh sir I for the Lord’s sake, what will become of me? Will my mistress keep me, or will she turn me off? Will she stay here, or will she go into the country … or leave me here to be starved and undone?’”
Defoe meets some bros: “There was a dreadful set of fellows that used their [tavern], and who, in the middle of all this horror, met there every night … so when the dead-cart came, they would make their impudent mocks and jeers at them, especially if they heard the poor people call upon God to have mercy upon them.”
Defoe encounters thoughtless Vancouver-type people: “They were not quite sick, had yet the distemper upon them, and who, by having an uninterrupted liberty to go about … gave the distemper to others, and spread the infection in a dreadful manner.”
Defoe stocks up at Loblaws: “I was one of those thoughtless ones that had made so little provision that my servants were obliged to go out of doors to buy every trifle by penny and halfpenny … I began to be wiser so late that I had scarce time to store myself sufficient for a month.” Defoe buys a bread machine on Amazon: “I went and bought two sacks of meal, and for several weeks, having an oven, we baked all our own bread.”
Defoe sanitizes: “When anyone bought a joint of meat in the market they would not take it off the butcher’s hand, but took it off the hooks themselves. The butcher would not touch the money, but have it put into a pot full of vinegar.”
Defoe goes vegetarian: “I laid in a store of bread, butter, cheese, and beer, and resolved to suffer the hardship of living a few months without flesh-meat, rather than to purchase it at the hazard of our lives.”
Defoe checks his sources: “They did tell me a nurse in one place that laid a wet cloth upon the face of a dying patient whom she tended, and so put an end to his life. These stories had marks of suspicion … the particulars were always the same.”
Defoe tries home remedies: “His wife was washing her head in vinegar and sprinkling her head-clothes so with vinegar as to keep them always moist.”
Defoe postpones his reno: “All the tradesmen usually employed in building and repairing of houses were at a full stop, bricklayers, masons, carpenters, joiners, plasterers, painters, glaziers, smiths, plumbers.”
Defoe goes for a walk: “The great street I lived in was more like a green field than a paved street, and the people generally went in the middle with the horses and carts.”
With that, readers, take Defoe’s advice of yore and go for a walk. Keep your distance.
Heather Mallick is a columnist based in Toronto covering current affairs. Follow her on Twitter: @HeatherMallick