The Narrator: Perspective & Reliability
This point of view allows the narrator to blend personal memory with researched detail.
What is first‑person?
This catastrophic event forms the backdrop of the narrative.
What is the Great Plague?
When the narrator retells stories from neighbors, he is using this type of evidence.
What is secondhand evidence?
The narrator shows how people behave differently under danger, highlighting this theme.
What is human behavior in crisis?
“Calamity” most nearly means this.
What is a great disaster?
The narrator's use of statistics and Bills of Mortality suggests he wants readers to view him as this.
What is credible or authoritative?
These weekly documents reveal how London tracked deaths by parish.
What are the Bills of Mortality?
What can you infer about public trust in medicine based on the popularity of "quacks?"
What is people were desperate and willing to believe false cures?
The tension between statistics and personal stories reflects this theme.
What is reason vs. emotion?
Use the word “contagion” to explain how the plague spread in crowded neighborhoods.
What is the disease passed quickly through close contact?
The narrator sometimes admits he did not witness all events firsthand. What does this reveal about his reliability?
What is that he is partially reliable?
Why did many wealthy Londoners flee to the countryside.
What is they believed distance and isolation would protect them?
Why did fear spread faster than the plague, according to the narrator.
What is uncertainty and lack of knowledge intensify panic?
How did the plague expose social inequality in London.
What is the poor suffer more due to overcrowding and lack of resources?
What emotional tone is created by the word “desolation.”
What is emptiness, abandonment, or hopelessness?
What can you infer about the narrator’s motivations based on his calm, methodical tone?
What is he wants to document events accurately and warn future readers?
How did the shutting up of houses reflect the government’s understanding of disease.
What is they believed containment could stop the spread?
How did the narrator’s descriptions of funerals contribute to the emotional tone of the text?
What is they highlight grief, helplessness, and the overwhelming scale of death?
How does uncertainty shape the narrator’s worldview.
What is he recognizes the limits of human knowledge during disaster?
How does the term “pestilence” reinforce the severity of the plague?
What is it emphasizes deadly, uncontrollable disease?
How did the narrator’s dual role as both observer and participant shape the reader’s understanding of the plague.
What is it creates tension between objectivity and personal fear, influencing how we interpret events?
The narrator describes "one man's experience watching his loved ones be tossed into the burial pit (para. 9)." What does this detail help you to understand the setting's time and location?
What is it helps me understand that large-scale death was too much for society to handle and forced it to be less humane.
How does the narrator’s selective storytelling shapes the reader’s perception of truth?
What is it forces readers to question what is factual versus interpreted?
How does Defoe use the plague to comment on society’s moral and ethical responsibilities.
What is he suggests crises reveal both compassion and selfishness?
What is a synonym for "promiscuously?"
What is indiscriminately, carelessly, recklessly, or loosely?