The Plague

The Plague

In the Plague Barbra Tuchman provides the audience with detailed images of the plague that eliminated about a third of the European population. The author uses imagery to depict the victims’ symptoms dynamically and incredibly. Additionally, she uses vivid description tom illustrate how the filth associated with the bubonic plague, including how the rich and the poor were affected by the disease (Tuchman 555). Furthermore, she develops her essays from excerpts of other writings of historians’ contemporary to the bubonic plague, coupled with her own opinion of how the disease affected Europeans. Accordingly, Tuchman’s vivid and moving descriptions of the plague serve to convey her tone to portray the sense of fear characteristics as well as the causes of the epidemic and how the pandemic affected Europe’s religious, cultural, economic, and political institutions during that period.

The author employs the descriptions of filth to convey a sensation of impending doom to the reader. She vividly and precisely the foulness of the bubonic plague and the filthy environment that fostered the disease itself. For instance, Tuchman depicts the manifestation of the pandemic through phrases like the relish and nauseating in addition to how it manifested itself through black markings on the skin and “spreading boils” (Tuchman 548). The black markings in the skin were an indication of internal bleeding. On the other hand, the author states that “…swellings oozing blood and pus the sizes of eggs or apples showed in the armpits and groins of the infected ones; “everything that issued from the body- breath, sweat, blood from the buboes and lungs, bloody urine, and blood-blackened excrement- smelled foul. Moreover, she meticulously details the filth and the muck of the disease by explaining that individuals who suffered the plague rarely bathed” (Tuchman 548).

On the other hand, Tuchman (549) affirms that “as the plague continued to spread, other symptoms such as continuous fever and spitting of blood appeared instead of the buboes or swellings.” As such, through these depictions, Tuchman displays the filth of the bubonic plague and the extent to which it festered both in closely packed urban cities in addition to the distant villages within the rural context (Tuchman 557). Consequently, the author illustrates how women within the confinements of their homes were most prone to the plague since they were exposed to fleas.

Tuchman also uses imagery to help the reader picture the extent to which the pandemic causes many deaths. In contrast to epidemics such as HIV/AIDS in the modern days, the bubonic plague killed approximately one-third of the global population within five years. In fact, what made the disease different and more horrific than any other pandemic was its high mortality rate. Tuchman (533) states that bubonic plague spread across the eastern hemisphere like a wildfire. The disease presented itself in two forms, whereby it was infected in the bloodstream or the pneumonic type that was infected and spread through respiratory infection. As such, the high mortality rate caused by the disease was due to the fact that it was infected through contact with the victims.

On the other hand, the author uses the depiction of fear to convey how most people were affected by the plague. Tuchman explains how the high mortality rate brought fear amongst most individuals who suffered through the “black death.” As illustrated in a Welsh Lament, the plague was “death coming into our midst like black smoke (Tuchman 33). This caused fear among most people because if the pandemic infected just one family member, the rest of the family members were sure to die within a few days. The high death mortality rate caused graveyards to fill up to capacity, with some people resorting to throwing dead bodies in the dark waters of the Rhone.

Significantly, the author states that, as the death rate continued to rise, individuals began digging mass graves, which provided places to dump the corpses. Eventually, in London, these burial pits often proved inadequate to receive dead bodies since corpses overflowed their layered stacks within the trenches (Tuchman 684). The author further describes how the dead were gathered up by the Compagnia della Misericordia in Florence, which initially served the purpose of caring for the sick. However, as the facility filled up to capacity, the dead bodies were thrown in the streets where they laid putrid for several days. Consequently, the fear of the plague contributed to families dumping the corpses of their loved ones into the pits or even burying them so hastily in shallow graves “that dogs dragged them forth and devoured their bodies” (Tuchman 685).

Tuchman uses chaos to depict how the plague led to chaos in society. She illustrates this through the social class conflict between the rich and the poor. In simple terms, the pandemic spared individuals who could afford its treatment while the poor succumbed to its death since they lacked the funds for the treatment. Tuchman (555) states that “…flight was the chief recourse of those who could afford it.” The inequality in the distribution of wealth between the rich and poor also determined the extensive widespread of the disease. Similar to modern society, the affluent members of society have been more likely to afford more privileges compared to the poor. During the period of the “Black Death,” individuals within the upper class-the elite members of the society would flee to areas far away secluded country homes. Furthermore, poor individuals lived in urban close quarter-like burrows, which only increased their susceptibility to the bubonic infection (Tuchman 555). Accordingly, from Tuchman’s descriptions, it is evident that the high poverty level and ignorance resulted in the widespread of the plague amongst the lower class who suffered a more significant death toll compared to the elite members.

Finally, the bubonic plague also affected the religious institution during the time leading to chaos across cities and rural areas. Amidst the prevalence of death and fear of infection, Tuchman portrays how the chaos affected religious institutions. The nurses and clergy who took care of the sick died at a higher rate. The repeated exposure and sheer exhaustion of priests moving from home to home during the day and night increased the vulnerability of the clergy to the disease. As the disease progressed, few priests forced Clement IV to declare that those on the verge of death could make their confessions to anyone present at the time of their death, including “a woman” (Tuchman, 94). Subsequently, the prevalence of death among the priest led Clement IV to grant remission of sin to all who died of the plague, since so many of the victims were unattended by the priests”. (Tuchman 95).