Role of Pandemic Literature in the Crisis of Covid-19
The covid-19 outbreak has affected our world very badly. Many people got infected, many died, many lost their jobs due to this pandemic. The hospitals are full of patients. Schools, Colleges, offices everything is closed. The global economy has fallen into recession. People are locked in their homes. The whole humanity is in fear. In such a chaotic situation how can reading literature help, comfort and guide us…?
Reading Literature can help us to properly understand this whole situation and its effect on us, our psychology, our society and our world. Because humanity has witnessed such situations many times in the past and a great deal of literature has also been written on it which is referred to as Pandemic Literature. The COVID-19 outbreak and the situation of lockdown have increased the sale of Pandemic Literature all over the world because people can relate their own situation with the pandemic fiction they are reading.
The pandemic fiction like The Plague by Albert Camus is very relatable to our current situation because Camus tells us the story of a town which faces an outbreak of the Plague and therefore the town is quarantined. Some infected people in the novel are kept away from their families. Now, when we read such a story, we get totally involved in it because the situation described in the book is not so different from ours. In our world also there are many cities/areas which are sealed and many people who are quarantined or isolated. Along with that, we can also relate the behaviour, psychology, problems and actions of the characters in the novel. This type of literature presents the whole human race as Hero…. therefore, as human beings, we learn more about ourselves. Reading and studying such literature will help us to handle our own situation. In the present scenario, turning to literature will give us the strength and courage to deal with the outbreak of this pandemic because Literature teaches us to learn from the past so that we can avoid Chaos in the present and future.
The present situation has made us morally down therefore we need literature to lift our spirits because when the bad time comes it is impossible to be rational. Pandemic Literature gives us the idea of what could be done in such a crisis because similar kinds of situations are described there. That is the reason why the stories of pandemics are widely read as people want to know and understand the current situation and find some remedy to it. These pandemics have a deep connection with human beings and that is the reason why the stories related to them are more appealing to us as they represent human action and thought… and indirectly we learn that we all need to stay together and help each other through these difficult times. This literature is also helping us to know our responsibility towards our family and our society. Though the lifestyle of the people has totally changed due to this pandemic but at least people have learnt to be positive by reading literature because they now understand they are now dealing with a common enemy called Covid-19.