A Journal of the Plague year

The beginning of this reading assignment was really hard to stay attentive to. The beginning was boring because all he talked about was how the plague was starting and everybody was scared. Later he goes on about how his super religious brother was trying to tell him to flee to London away from the plague. He was going to do that but his servant who was going to assist him deceived him and left without him. His brother continued to persuade him to come to London. In the end, he decides to stay in town and says that "as my times were in His hands, He was as able to keep me in a time of the infection as in a time of health; and if He did not think fit to deliver me, still I was in His hands, and it was meet He should do with me as should seem good to Him." So basically, he says that his life is in God's hands and if God wants to take him he will and if not that is the will of God.

Later, he explains measures that were ordered by the parliament to get rid of the sickness. Some were that if you were infected or in the house of someone who was infected you were to be shut up in your own home for twenty eight days to keep it from spreading. They also ordered that all dogs and cats be killed and "That no hogs, dogs, or cats, or tame pigeons, or conies, be suffered to be kept within any part of the city," because it could spread the disease. Then later the man goes on and on about how London is infected and how death rates drop and increase and some people come back to their homes and sometimes die of the plague themselves. After talking about the measures that were taken to prevent and try to get rid of the plague, Defoe explains how the town got better and relieved from the plague. There was apparently a fire that was in London. Then the plague deaths decreased and people actually started recovering from it. At the end, people are coming back to town and cleaning their houses to live there again.

The Journal was a lot of talking and hard reading but it is an interesting account of the things that happened in those times. It made me think about what we would do different nowadays if there were a terrible deadly plague to break out. I wonder what would be done differently and if it would spread as quickly as it did in 1664.

A Modest Proposal Response

A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift was an interesting read and I actually thought that this man was considering telling people to eat their children until I realized that it was a work of satire. At the time, Ireland was undergoing bad treatment from England. So, in response to their treatment, Swift wrote this piece about the poor people of Ireland saying that a way to get rid of the poor and fatherless children was to have poor mothers sell their children to be eaten. This way, mothers could make a profit off of their offspring that would otherwise make them and the country poorer. This is obviously a terrible and gruesome idea and Swift was using satire and sarcasm to kind of mock the British. The British all openly thought badly of the Irish and Swift was showing that he knows that they don't like them and he was responding in this sarcastic manner to make them look foolish. Because he is so serious in proposing that the Irish sell and eat children makes the British look very foolish.

Restoration Project

The Glorious Revolution was where King James the second, King of Scotland, Ireland, and England, tried to make Catholicism the only religion of the land. He tried to take away power from the Parliament who obviously opposed this, and King James tried to form his own type of parliament full of supporters who shared the same views as the King. These supporters were obviously Catholic and wanted the country to be Catholic as well.


Later, when King James had a son, the Parliament expressed fear that the English monarchy might fall into a Catholic dynasty. The Parliament then called King James' son-in-law, William of Orange, who was a Protestant. William led his army into England and King James fled the country. The English Parliament then gave throne to William and his wife, Mary. The Revolution is also called The Bloodless Revolution because supposedly, no blood was shed during this fight for the rights of Protestants.


I think that the Revolution was important because it established a Bill of Rights and restricted the power that a monarch could hold. After these events, Protestants established their freedom and England became a little more free from a king that holds to much power. I thing that after the Revolution, the people had a little more say so and the government influenced alot of what modern day democracy is now. It was in this time that a Bill of Rights for a country was created, which is one of the basic elements of democracy, the rights of the individual. Another is the lessened power of the monarchy and strengthening of the Parliament, which represents the people. This aspect of governmental change also reflects modern day democracy, that is the voice and sovereignty of the people. I know that this time in English history is not like what modern day democracy is now, but I do believe that these events had alot to do with influencing it.

In the religious aspect of these events, people probably began to be a little more open minded about religion. People probably learned to accept religious differences because Parliament wanted the Protestant religion to have rights as well.



Satire- I define the word satire as sarcasam, to make fun of, or irony. A very general example of the word satire would be a funny spoof of something. Like those spoof movies such as Scary Movie that makes fun of other movies that are supposed to be scary. The movie instead uses sarcasam and makes the movie look funny. Another more specific example of the word satire would be the political cartoons that you see in newspapers. These define satire to me because they take something from a political situation, and use irony to be sarcastic about the situation or person and make fun of it.