The Biscuit Maker, the Sail Maker and the Joiner The plague is describes as a contagious disease which spreads quickly and causes a large number of deaths. It may have even caused more deaths than wars have. Nowadays, plagues seem to be a growing trend in media, used as a form of entertainment in movies, games and so on. Plagues are usually represented as diseases which have no known cure or origin. Although Gomel talks about the more about the aftermath of the plague, she relates it to Defoe’s point of view of the plague. The plot of Gomel’s article is about the results of an apocalyptic happenings. She first talks about a body that has been attacked by the plague. How it is does not have a stable form when it is being discussed because…show more content… “One of the most haunting images of A Journal of the Plague Year is the description of dead bodies thrown into a common pit” (Gomel, 413). The text in Defoe’s book describes the manner in which the bodies were handled. She talks about how bodies before the plague, were given proper burials with complicated ceremonies while bodies that have been stricken with plague are handled carelessly and are given mass burials. With plague stricken bodies, people want to be as far from them as possible and do not even take the time to identify them, but if they were plague free people would have wanted to prolong the burials, recognize them publicly for their achievements and lament over their loss.
However, the characters from H.F’s story are three men, of which two are brothers. One of the characters is John, a soldier turned biscuit maker due to wound in his leg. Another is Thomas the brother of John, a sailor turned sail maker, also due to a wound in his leg. The third was a man named Richard, a joiner who carries what he proclaims as all his worldly possessions with him, his toolbox. In a way, the characters from Gomel and Defoe’s text have similar characters, due to the fact that they are all beings, though Defoe’s characters are alive and Gomel talks about dead…show more content… It is set in a world struggling to emerge from its ashes, a world fighting to be reborn into a new society. Gomel also talks about how the plague is presented in different books and how it differs in each one. “A Journal of the Plague Year opens with bills of mortality,” (Gomel, 414). She describes Defoe’s novel as showing the recognizing misfortunes that befell only a few characters as a way of humanizing them and having readers sympathize with them. On the other hand, H.F’s tale about the three men is set in a world during the plague, where people are scared and confused. This is relayed by the men who leave Wapping, their town, even though it is said to be one of the secure places. It is among those who have not been touched by death due to the