Defoe, however, although did he live in London at the time, was born in 1660, and was therefore only five years old when the Hand of Death fell upon the city of London.ĭefoe creates a convincing persona by making his narrator a stolid burgher who fears his God, respects his fellow Londoners, and admires his city, an unimaginative man who above all reverences reliable testimony and verifiable facts. Perhaps the most impressive thing about “A Journal of the Plague Year" is that it is an extraordinarily convincing account narrated by the voice of a mature, solid citizen-thoroughly respectable and reliable-who has personally witnessed the extraordinary and often horrific incidents he describes. A brief study of Daniel Defoe's book on the London plague of 1665-1666 illustrates this principle. A person's strengths and weaknesses are often two sides of the same coin-the sympathetic character is often permissive, the assertive unreasonable, the ardent rash-and the same thing can be said of an author's beauties and his faults. Because writing is an expression of human character, what is true of one's character is true of one's writing as well.
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