Doomsday Book by Connie Willis: Fact or Fiction?
Doomsday Book, Fact or Fiction?
In our day and age, movies and novels are passed off by many as history. Movies like Troy, U-571, and Enemy at the Gates (it can 't get any worse than that) are historical inaccurate and at times horribly offensive. One must be dubious towards any form of entertainment with historical "facts" put out, be it a book or a movie. On the contrary, Connie Willis does a relatively good job of portraying the past in the Doomsday Book. She writes about traveling in time to the era of the Black Death and how it was experienced by the people who lived during the time. She discusses the plague itself, the religious aspects of it, and the hygiene of the people. For the most part, she depicts the past accurately as it was recorded by people who lived during the time.
The Doomsday Book focuses on the Late Middle Ages, especially the Black Death. Willis describes the path of the plague, the symptoms, the results and such. According to records from the past, she does this quite accurately. She twice mentions the three different types of plagues and discusses the differences between them. "There are two distinct types, no, threeone went directly into the bloodstream and killed the victim within hours. Bubonic plague was spread by rat fleas, and that was the kind that produced the buboes. The other kind was pneumonic, and it didn 't have buboes. The victim coughed and vomited up blood, and that was spread by droplet infection and was horribly contagious." (Willis, 324) These facts are definitely correct. The flea of the rat was in fact the vector of the Y. pestis bacteria which carries the plague. The Centers for Disease Control discuss the Plague in detail as well and say that "Plague is an infectious disease that affects animals and humans. It is caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis. This bacterium is found in rodents and their fleas" (CDC)
Willis goes on to slightly repeat herself but still has the correct facts. "I wish I knew whether the
In our day and age, movies and novels are passed off by many as history. Movies like Troy, U-571, and Enemy at the Gates (it can 't get any worse than that) are historical inaccurate and at times horribly offensive. One must be dubious towards any form of entertainment with historical "facts" put out, be it a book or a movie. On the contrary, Connie Willis does a relatively good job of portraying the past in the Doomsday Book. She writes about traveling in time to the era of the Black Death and how it was experienced by the people who lived during the time. She discusses the plague itself, the religious aspects of it, and the hygiene of the people. For the most part, she depicts the past accurately as it was recorded by people who lived during the time.
The Doomsday Book focuses on the Late Middle Ages, especially the Black Death. Willis describes the path of the plague, the symptoms, the results and such. According to records from the past, she does this quite accurately. She twice mentions the three different types of plagues and discusses the differences between them. "There are two distinct types, no, threeone went directly into the bloodstream and killed the victim within hours. Bubonic plague was spread by rat fleas, and that was the kind that produced the buboes. The other kind was pneumonic, and it didn 't have buboes. The victim coughed and vomited up blood, and that was spread by droplet infection and was horribly contagious." (Willis, 324) These facts are definitely correct. The flea of the rat was in fact the vector of the Y. pestis bacteria which carries the plague. The Centers for Disease Control discuss the Plague in detail as well and say that "Plague is an infectious disease that affects animals and humans. It is caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis. This bacterium is found in rodents and their fleas" (CDC)
Willis goes on to slightly repeat herself but still has the correct facts. "I wish I knew whether the
References: Boccaccio, Giovanni. Stories of Boccaccio. London: Bibliophilist Library, 1903 Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Newhall, Richard A. The Chronicle of Jean de Venette. New York: Columbia University Press, 1953. Newman, Paul B. Daily Life in the Middle Ages. Jefferson: McFarland & Company, 2001. Thompson, Sir EM. Chronicon Galfridi le Baker de Swynebroke. Oxford, 1889. Willis, Connie. Doomsday Book. New York: Banthom Books, 1992.