As the COVID-19 pandemic rages on, I have been reflecting on the various stages of quarantine throughout the year. Some were focused on baking, some obsessed over new Netflix shows. One thing that is undeniably embarrassing is the stage where people hoarded toilet paper like that would somehow save them. In relation to this, I was thinking about A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe. When discussing the scene where the ladies steal the hats, we all laughed at the absurdity of it. Who would steal something so mundane and unnecessary in such a serious situation? Clearly, most of the United States would. I think this is a great example of how easy it is to say how you would react to a situation if you aren't currently in it. People will say things like, "Well, if someone broke into my house I would just x, y, z," when in reality they'd likely hide in a closet. There truly is no way to know how you'll act in a situation until it's happening, and you probably wouldn't predict the way you'll act when it does happen. Reading this book at such a similar time was so surreal, especially as it's a situation we truly never expected to experience. I wonder if anyone will write something similar to Defoe's book once this pandemic is over.
Herman Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener" is secretly about Cotton-Eyed Joe. We often talk about how poems resemble songs, so why can't the plots of short stories do the same? In the case of "Bartleby", I think that he as a person can easily be likened to our dear old pal CE Joe. We don't know where he came from, we don't know where he went (in the biblical sense). He has an air of mystery about him. He messes with the narrator's personal life. I know that this is silly, but I think it's fun to relate things that you don't necessarily enjoy to things that you do. If anyone can think of other parallels between the two, please feel free to comment them below.
Comments
Post a Comment