Assessing Daniel Defoe’s, a journal of the plague year from a COVID-19 perspective

Abstract

Poor sanitary and health conditions have always confronted humanity with epidemics throughout history. A history of plagues Allows us  to set A journal of the Plague Year, in the series second period of pandemics ranging from the 14th to 19th centuries. The novel presents  accounts of people facing the advent of the 1665 Bubonic plague. The reader is exposed to the predicament of a fictional English citizens’  perceptions and their reactions to the spreading ail. The present study seeks to develop a reading of A Journal of the Plague Year in the  light of happenings during the advent of COVID-19. From a socio-critical perspective, as viewed by Karl Marx, Mikhail Bakhtin, the study  highlights the representation of society according to time and realities in the face of the Bubonic plague and COVID-19. It has found that  the human experience has developed from fear to dilemma and control mechanisms put into place by the institutions entitled to provide  for the citizen’s welfare.