Journal of the Plague Year as a journal; as a novel

I must confess that after our class discussion last week that I am still not completely in love with Defoe's style of narration but I do understand and even respect it. I think that in a way, using H.F as a narrator of ordinary status (since we do not even know his full name) is effective, just not in a way that is endearing or enthralling to me as a reader. I also can see the difference in the expectations of a novel- reader of our time and a reader of his time.


In evalutating Defoe in respect to Behn, I see a completely different choice in narrative style. When I read Behn, I felt as if I was reading with my ears plugged securely over my ears to keep the noise of the narrator out so I could digest the story for myself. I felt as if I did not have freedom to make my own conclusions about the story as the narrator belted out her opinions as facts sometimes even before she presented the material she was commenting on. In reading Defoe, it was quite the opposite, I had a narrator who lacked empathy and seemed to tell the story in a monotonous voice. I actually felt like H.F was more of a voice than a possible character in the novel. I felt like he was the voice you hear when you see the large block letters announcing Law and Order:SVU while you never see the owner of the voice, for instance. H.F as we noted in class was an ordinary person. We do not have ample reason to believe that he was of high social class or extravagant means and as readers we never fully get to associate with our narrator as we never even learn his full name. Defoe used H.F as a tool to present his story and that was really what he seemed like to me: a tool.

However, in view and in spite of these differences, I must note that I still enjoyed reading Behn more than I did Defoe. I think this might be because with Behn I felt as if I could almost predict the direction and the end of the story. I saw it almost as soon as I started reading as the story of the tragic hero, the great perfect and hallowed individual who ends up decaying and destroying himself and those around him in the end. It is the same theme I see in Macbeth, in Othello, and several others. Also, the story was the kind that captures attention. I mean as people I think readers always have a tendecy to favor literature that celebrates strengths, like wisdom, comeliness, might, skill in battle etc. So the fact that Behn chose to create characters like Imoinda and Oroonoko in my mind as a reader gave her a boost. Defoe told a story of a dark and gloomy event. One would expect his narrator to be empathetic; to connect with the characters he encountered who were inflicted by the plague. I felt myself expecting him to cry with those who suffered and to write from a personal point of view. That was however, not the case. H.F tells the story like a journalist as has been noted in a former post, disengaging himself emotionally from the happenings of the story. As a reader, I was quite unsure of what to do with that. I mean I found it challenging to follow a story that told of death and dying where the narrator always made sure to wash his hands clean of the certainty of the events by leaving it up to his reader to choose to believe or not to believe some of the things he (the narrator) was told and recorded. Now this is a longshot from Behn.

I can now see what Davis points out as the difference in the expectations of the modern reader as against the expectations of the the reader of Defoe's time. But overall, I think that I still respect Defoe and see why his unique style has remained in publication. I am not in love with his story but I respect his ingenuity.