Then I read The Plague by Camus. As fiction, this story was much more introspective, contemplative and interpretive. What it shows, more than Defoe, is the effective global disease has on individual lives.
"Everybody knows that pestilences have a way of recurring in the world; yet somehow, we find it hard to believe in ones that crash down on our heads from a blue sky; There have been as many plagues as wars in history; yet always plagues and wars take people equally be surprise."
"... in other words they were humanists: they disbelieved in pestilences. A pestilence isn't a thing made to man's measure; therefore, we tell ourselves that pestilence is a mere bogy of the mind, a bad dream that will pass away. But it doesn't pass away and, from one bad dream to another, it is men who pass away, and the humanists first of all, because they haven't taken their precautions."
As Camus describes the actions taken by government, he is free to interpret the rational and likely effects: "... measures enjoined were far from Draconian and one had the feeling the feeling that many concessions had been made to a desire not to alarm the public."
"The notice outlined the general program that the authorities had drawn up. It included a systematic extermination of the rat population by injecting poison gas into sewers, and a strict supervision of the water supply. The townspeople were advised to practice extreme cleanliness, and any who found fleas on their person were directed to call at municipal dispensaries. Also heads of households were ordered to promptly report any fever case diagnosed by their doctor and to permit the isolation of sick members of their families in special wards at the hospital." A few pages later: "That the regulations now in force were inadequate was lamentably clear.'
When Defoe writes at length about death counts and mass burials, Camus speaks eloquently on the personal effects. "... the plague forced inactivity on them, limiting their movements to the same dull round .. and showing them day after day on the illusive solace of their memories ... the feeling of exile ... irrational longing to hark back to the past or else to speed up the march of time."
"... they came to know the incorrigible sorrow of all prisoners and exiles, which is to live in company with a memory that serves no purpose. Even the past, of which they thought incessantly, had a savor only of regret ... with the man or woman whose return they now awaited .. they kept vainly trying to include the absent one ... and thus there was always something missing in their lives . Hostile to the past, impatient with the present and cheated of the future."
"...the fact that they had been sentenced .. to an indeterminate period of punishment. And while a good many people adapted themselves to confinement and carried on their humdrum lives, there were others who rebelled and whose one idea was to break loose for the prison house ... this feeling of being locked in like criminals prompted them sometimes to foolhardy acts."
Continuing to write of the disease long-term impact on individuals, Camus notes "the furious revolt of the first weeks had given place to a vast despondency, not to be taken for resignation .. a sort of passive and provisional acquiescence ... citizens had fallen into line, adapted to the situation because there was no way of doing otherwise ... listless, indifferent, and looking so bored ..."
Adding Camus to the recommended reading list for governmental policymakers might prove more difficult because he delves deeply into the impact the disease has on being separated from loved ones, finding new friends, trying to do one's job under adverse circumstances. Maybe today, people are exposing these emotions more openly/anonymously on the Internet. When considering whether to reopen schools, child psychologist are discussing the mental impacts of not learning socially; others report increases in domestic violence and adult depression. Camus told you so.
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