Narratives of Epidemics: Topsy-turvy Conditions of Humans and Quest for Existence

Abdel-Fattah M. Adel¹, Mashhoor Abdu Al-Moghales² & Suhail Ahmad³

¹Department of English, College of Arts, University of Bisha, Saudi Arabia. Email: aadeal@ub.edu.sa, ORCID: 0000-0001-7968-8167

²Department of English, College of Arts, University of Bisha, Saudi Arabia and Taiz University, Yemen. Email: mamohammad@ub.edu.sa, ORCID: 0000-0001-7984-5388

³Department of English, College of Arts, University of Bisha, Saudi Arabia. Email: suhailahmed@ub.edu.sa, ORCID: 0000-0001-6611-2484

  Volume 12, Number 5, 2020 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v12n5.rioc1s28n1

Abstract

Corpus of literature is replete with works that feature pandemics as central themes. As a response to diseases outbreaks, fiction writers portray the human condition and the shifts in human behaviour at these crucial junctures of human history. Plot structure and characterization accounts for the void –both within and without—: prevailing chaos, crumbling social structures, undermining of religious values, and Government’s apathy. Based on such themes, this paper examines, from Deterministic and Existentialistic perspectives, three representative fictions written in the 21^st century: Reina James’s This Time of Dying (2006) on the deadly influenza of 1918, Amir Taj Elsir’s Ebola ’76 (2012) on the outbreak of Ebola in 1976, and Karen Maitland’s The Plague Charmer (2016) on the plague of 1361. The findings include: (a) the novels predict the contemporary society with their resonance of apocalyptic images and preventive measures, (b) they manifest ontological shifts as the orthodox worldviews are jolted, and (c) fictional and personal narratives are not less important than historical records on health in quest for existence.

 Keywords: Epidemic Novels, Human Conditions, Determinism, Freewill.