Defoe's Journal of the Plague Year: Law, Quarantine, and Governance

Introduction: Plague as Political and Social Document

Although frequently criticized as a "thorny shrub" of miscreant journalism, Daniel Defoe's semi-fictional account of the great plague of 1665 also offers telling insight into English social and political customs. A Journal of the Plague Year is now framed more as a novel than as historiography, but it is equal parts both, making it akin to ancient narratives like the Epic of Gilgamesh. Defoe does a deft job at pastiche, weaving facts with embellishments that add life to what would otherwise be a dry accounting of the inventory of dead and the litany of loss that occurred as a result of the plague.

The reader of A Journal of the Plague Year risks losing sight of the forest for the trees, because those minute details contained in the text, whether true or false, offer far less of the real story than the gestalt: the public's reaction to the plague is what really matters. Not just the public's reaction, but the reaction and methods used by the authorities in London are what make Defoe's narrative so important to understand. These methods—including the rule of law, the use of quarantine as a means of promoting public safety and preventing the spread of the plague, and the function of watchmen—lend insight into English governance during the seventeenth century. Moreover, the despair, desolation, and dread that permeate the account show how the plague evoked an existential crisis of apocalyptic proportions. The use of strong top-down organizational tactics such as quarantine, watchmen, and the rule of law parallels the technological, social, and political changes taking place in pre-modern English society.

Defoe's book shows that the plague inspired one of the first organized, rational, and collaborative public responses to a health epidemic, even though some of the methods used failed. The public response also reveals the impetus for populist reforms and a more self-empowering form of democratic government. Many magistrates and other city officials who could have mounted a cohesive response to the epidemic fled the city at the first signs of outbreak. Defoe is particularly critical of the magistrates and watchmen who reacted selfishly, while celebrating those who elected to stay in the interests of promoting public welfare. While some did their jobs, others "were absent, sometimes drunk, sometimes asleep when the people wanted them, and such never failed to be punished severely, as indeed they deserve." The fact that the public did mete out punishments on neglectful city officials shows how the mentality was changing; the people realized that they needed to take matters into their own hands.

Rule of Law and the Public Good

The narrator, H.F., continually reminds the reader that the law was present to ensure public safety and, unfortunately, to confine the infected to their homes so that they could not spread the disease. "But after all that was or could be done in these cases, the shutting up of houses, so as to confine those that were well with those that were sick, had very great inconveniences in it." As tragic as it was to confine people, "it was authorised by a law, it had the public good in view as the end chiefly aimed at, and all the private injuries that were done by the putting it in execution must be put to the account of the public benefit." This statement shows how the rule of law was being increasingly conceptualized as a matter of public good—one that triumphed over all other considerations when creating laws for society.

Indeed, Defoe lauds the magistrates for their work in enforcing sensible laws: "the magistrates wisely caused the people to be encouraged, made very good bye-laws for the regulating the citizens, keeping good order in the streets, and making everything as eligible as possible to all sorts of people." While some magistrates and watchmen did flee, most did not: "they would not quit the city themselves, but that they would be always at hand for the preserving good order in every place and for the doing justice on all occasions."

Defoe also shows how the law, meted out by magistrates and watchmen, helped protect not just the interests of the wealthy and powerful but of the poor as well. The magistrates were responsible "also for the distributing the public charity to the poor; and, in a word, for the doing the duty and discharging the trust reposed in them by the citizens to the utmost of their power."

The Role of Class, Church, and Political Consciousness

Defoe shows how London's demographics were changing given the rise in middle-class power. As Richetti points out, London during the late seventeenth century as Defoe describes it in the Journal is "where a substantial urban bourgeoisie and professional/bureaucratic class" intermingled (71). The way the government and the people responded collectively to an epidemic that affected rich and poor alike inspired Defoe to activate his already astute "political consciousness" (Richetti 71).

The Church is a primary target of Defoe's political consciousness. In A Journal of the Plague Year, Church officials are the ones least equipped—morally or institutionally—to offer solace or succor, let alone the kind of financial support that might have been needed. The fact that clergy were harassed and penalized, as H.F. describes, demonstrates how Londoners were changing their attitudes toward presumed Church authority. Church responses to the plague were dissatisfactory at best, which aligned with the budding Enlightenment values of democratization of knowledge, truth, and reason. "Defoe's generation had been battered by events that seemed to prove over and over again that religious, legal, and political beliefs and practices were inadequate" (Backscheider 135). Defoe's Journal is hardly unique, but it is part of a broader zeitgeist.

Conclusion: London's Awakening Public Consciousness

London demonstrates in its reaction to the plague strong top-down organizational tactics such as quarantine, watchmen, and rule of law. Defoe describes each of these methods of managing the plague in London through the eyes of his narrator, H.F. In A Journal of the Plague Year, the reader is privy to the reactions of ordinary people to the plague, as well as to the reactions of public officials whose job it was to prevent the spread of disease. The use of quarantine and the watchmen reflects technological and scientific advancements in recognizing the ways disease spreads in tight quarters. Applying democratic rule of law to the management of the plague also reflects the social and political changes taking place in London.

Through A Journal of the Plague Year, Daniel Defoe reveals his predilection for political and social commentary—hallmarks of his writing throughout his career. As an embellished historical narrative, the Journal shows how seventeenth-century London was awakening to its own sense of public consciousness, a world in which it was finally acceptable to call attention to the failings of church and monarchic rule and to call for reform.

Works Cited

Backscheider, Paula R. Daniel Defoe: Ambition and Innovation. University Press of Kentucky, 1986.

Baker, Nicholson. "The greatest liar." Columbia Journalism Review. July/Aug 2009, http://archives.cjr.org/second_read/the_greatest_liar_1.php

Brown, Homer O. "The Displaced Self in the Novels of Daniel Defoe." ELH, vol. 34, no. 4, Dec. 1971, pp. 562–590.

Defoe, Daniel. A Journal of the Plague Year. Norton Critical Edition. Digital edition: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/376/376-h/376-h.htm

Harlan, Virginia. "Defoe's Narrative Style." The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, vol. 30, no. 1, Jan. 1931, pp. 55–73.

Peraldo, Emmanuelle. "Narrative Cartography in the Eighteenth Century." In Narratives of Travel and Tourism. Ashgate, 2012.

Richetti, John. The Life of Daniel Defoe. John Wiley & Sons, 2015.