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I agree with how similar this journal is in relation to the pandemic today, and what the process of a pandemic looks like. I mean, within the first paragraph it starts off with talk of where the plague has been said to infect a city, similar to how at the beginning of the pandemic we were keeping track, and still are, where it spreads and the cases involved in said area. It’s also interesting to think about how technology really also affects the spread of the pandemic because mentioned in the journal, Defoe says, “We had no such thing as printed newspapers in those days to spread rumors and reports of things.” All I can think about is how I keep up with the pandemic through Twitter. If we didn’t have a media platform to use, without social awareness, I can’t even imagine how much worse the pandemic could be. However, I do find it very sad how much we haven’t changed in turning our nose away from the facts, that some people would rather follow, to put in your terms, “fake news” rather than actual scientific facts. You would think after hundreds of years, maybe we would get it right, but I guess not.
I bet I, along with several students, upon reading this introduction, thought about the “Household Items Hoarding of 2020” in response to COVID-19. The very threat of a pandemic can bring about the end of the world mindsets often portrayed in movies as “normal” middle-class citizens frantic decision to buy out all the grocery store shelves, or in our COVID-19 case, every toilet paper bundle in existence. While not everyone is buying out all of the supplies and going to crazy levels, like my family and I who only buy 1 per shopping visit, I personally know people who are living the stereotypical “outbreak narrative”. My friend’s father bought a gun and taught her how to use it. Never, not once in her life has her dad brought up the idea of teaching her how to shoot a gun, but then this pandemic comes along, and he’s the next street over leaving a gun with my friend every time he goes out. On top of this she informed me he has also stooped to the level of a hoarder, especially of dill pickles, half and half, and you guessed it, toilet paper.
I agree with Priscilla Wald on how we, as a society, “need to understand the appeal and persistence of the outbreak narrative because the stories we tell about disease emergence have consequences”. We need to have a more realistic and calmer reaction in catastrophic event movies when life itself is threatened, otherwise, we have videos of single mothers crying because she can’t get any diapers for her kids. After all, some idiot, who is probably not even pregnant, decided he wanted to make a profit off of this virus. Thank goodness that is illegal now.The Masque of the Red Death is a prime example of why Poe is my favorite poets; through his use of metaphors and imagery, Poe creates a story to describe the horrors of the disease, specifically TB which took the life of his mother and, eventually, his wife. I can’t even imagine how much different this story would’ve been if he wrote this after his wife’s death, or even during the time her symptoms were consuming her. I keep thinking about how this poem relates to the reoccurring idea that literature is a fantastic form to portray illness and morality. A pandemic that acts very quickly or has life-altering symptoms like TB, AIDS, or even the Coronavirus is almost so surreal, that you kind of need a fanciful outlet to wrap around the serious situation. Literature has the ability to really unite people and remind people they are not alone in their suffering.
