Episode 8: Prisons without Bars and Bolts
With this episode the emphasis shifts a bit. Having previously set out a brief history of the onset of the plague and the steps taken to contain it by the authorities, the author now relates a series of incidents that, in the particulars of their telling, lend great emotional depth to his novel. This episode is the first of several that will focus on the plight of families shut up and the stratagems they devised, some of them quite violent, to escape a house arrest that was in many cases tantamount to a death sentence. Of particular note here is the distinction the author draws between the poor and those wealthy enough to have second homes to which they might escape, and means to lay in provisions for a long quarantine. It is distinction he refers to time and again throughout the novel, and as the author has chosen to remain in the city, it is to the fate of those not wealthy enough to flee that he is most often eyewitness. And it is in this episode that, for the first time, we’re introduced to the dead carts and to the now famous cry “Bring out your dead!”
[For notes on the main themes of the novel, visit https://londonplague.com/postscript/. To see some ways in which our reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic are anticipated in the Journal, see https://londonplague.com/concordance/.]
Credits:
Podcast produced by Sam Brelsfoard.
Music from Funeral Sentences of Henry Purcell (1659-1695), performed by the Choir of Clare College at the University of Cambridge, Timothy Brown conducting. Used by permission.
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© 2020 Mark Cummings