30 pages • 1 hour read
Daniel DefoeA Journal Of The Plague Year
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1722A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Pages 4-46Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Pages 4-24 Summary
The narrator recounts the events of September 1664, during which rumors spread that the plague had broken out in Holland. He remarks that, without the advent of newspapers, all information was hearsay until December, when the weekly Bill of Mortality listed two deaths by the plague. However, there were more burials than usual, and people speculated that many of the deaths listed as spotted fever and other ailments were actually deaths by the plague. Through the winter, the number of deaths decreased, but by June, increasingly more deaths were listed in the bills, mostly under other maladies as people tried to conceal the plague from their neighbors, as any infected home would be shut up.
Living in Aldgate, the narrator was far from the Western edge of the city where disease had broken out, but he witnessed his family and neighbors begin to flee the city. He relays that his brother tried to persuade him to leave, but each time he resolved to depart, something came up: he failed to find a horse or a servant to travel with, etc. Therefore, the narrator decided that “it was the Will of Heaven [he] should not go” (12). His brother tried to convince him one last time, but another obstacle to his departure arose when he fell ill (although not with the plague). At the height of his fever, he consulted the Bible, and turned to a passage that states, with faith, “neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling” (15). He resolved to stay.
By August 1665, the plague has spread east into the city. Although London was at is most populous ever after the restoration of the monarchy and the arrival of the court, when the plague hit, the streets were near-deserted, and screams of agony were audible. The narrator states that the appearance of two comets convinced the common people that God’s judgment was upon them, and they began to consult astrologers, oracles, and dreams to learn their fate.
Pages 25-46 Summary
The narrator goes into detail about the beliefs of the populace during the beginning of the plague. He condemns ministers who “sunk [rather] than lifted up the Hearts of the Hearers” (27) and inspired division amongst Christians. He describes the belief in oracles and astrologers as a disease in and of itself, with no “Remedy” except for the “Plague itself” (28), noting that servants who had no way to leave the city were the worst afflicted with superstition. Likewise, “Conjurers and Witches” provided preventative “medicine” that poisoned some people long before the plague reached them. These preventive medicines included mercury and other ingredients that threatened health, along with “Charms, Philters, Exorcisms, [and] Amulets” (33).
In response to these “Quacks,” some public measures were taken to protect the populace. However, despite their best efforts, physicians had as little power in the face of the plague as they would in the face of the Great London Fire of 1666. In addition to providing physicians, the Magistrates also took public measures to shut up infected houses. The narrator quotes the Orders of the Lord Mayor at Length: they include measures for appointing examiners to visit homes; watchmen to guard infected homes; and surgeons and nurses to attend the sick. The orders also include provisions for keeping the streets clean and free of corpses, and for forbidding theatrical performances and public eating-places.
Pages 4-46 Analysis
In these pages, the narrator shares the atmosphere of paranoia present in London during the onset of the plague. He notes that, without the advent of newspapers, information spread mainly as gossip and hearsay. Thus, when deaths began to rise in the public bills of health, people speculated and read into the numbers. Indeed, the number of the dead listed in these bills plays a significant role in this book: they are the main metric by which Londoners gauged their vulnerability to infection. The narrator maintains that even when no or few deaths were listed as caused by the plague, there were two motivating factors for obscuring the true cause of the death. The first motivation belonged to families affected by the disease: they did not want to be shut up by force as the sick family member might infect all the rest. The second motivation was the government’s: the city wanted to prevent public panic.
In the absence of firm news, and in the face of a devastating illness, Londoners took two courses. Those who could afford to leave mostly left. Those who were left (servants and the poor) tried to guess at their fates and prevent infection. The narrator unreservedly critiques the astrologers, oracles, and fraudulent physicians who advised these people, calling them the “Oracles of the Devil” (28) While critiquing these superstitions, however, the narrator shares that his own reasons for staying were based on signs. He interprets the obstacles to his departure as signs from God, and when he opens to a Bible passage that promises to protect the faithful from disease, he believes that it is God’s will that he stays. He is not entirely unaware of the irony of his decision. However, by the height of the plague, he has waited too long to receive a clean bill of health, or to be welcomed by any community outside of London.
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