The reason for the historical data is crucial to the understanding of the book. I did a slight bit of research to see the timeline of events that led up to the release of this novel. Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year was written 57 years after the great plague of London in 1665. When A Journal of the Plague Year was published, there was a potential plague in Marseilles that could potentially cross into England. This is quite significant, and I believe plays a big role in Daniel Defoe’s decision to publish the book, as well as add all historically accurate evidence. In the beginning of the novel, it appears that many of the folks are naive to the possible danger of the plague. They keep ignoring the warning signs and are praying that the plague just passes by. More and more, people keep dying, yet no one seems to be doing anything about it. There are suspicions that it could be the plague again, but no one is taking it seriously. Even the narrator of the story did not want to leave his trade and his goods behind to potentially keep himself from the plague. His brother was begging him to go to their sister’s house and stay there as it is safe for the moment. Daniel Defoe purposely shows this naivety in hopes of warning the people of England of the potentially new plague spreading from Marseille. He was attempting to show how horrid the Great Plague was and how the lives of many people could have been saved. He wants to put a sense of fear in the people so that they are more aware and more capable of what may come. All of the historical evidence that is stated in the novel shows how relaxed and careless the people were. Many lives could have possibly been saved if they had prepared better and knew more about the plague. The government tries to hide the information about the plague from spreading to the people as they do not want chaos on the streets. Daniel Defoe realizes that this is what the government will do and is attempting to warn the people. Many citizens did not know how to combat the plague at all and you can see that throughout the novel. In a way, I believe Defoe is trying to make a survival book. He is trying to give people the knowledge needed to survive the potential plague from Marseille. He is also attempting to tell the people what to avoid from doing. Using all the historically accurate information gives the people a better knowledge and understanding of what they will need to do to survive, as well as, prepare. Daniel Defoe published this book to go on the offensive and instead of being reactionary, he is trying to be proactive. By this I mean, that he is trying to eliminate potential problems that civilians may face if the plague does spread to England. In a potential time of need Daniel Defoe was attempting to reach out and help all the people of England.

https://www.mindomo.com/mindmap/4991e0600c1247c09e65a974a8692746

I chose to use the template of story summary for my mindomo. I chose this because it allowed me to refresh my memory of the play and helped me highlight some of the most important parts of the play. There is obviously so much you could choose to write about, so it took me sometime to choose what was most important to put in my mindmap. The hardest part for me in constructing my mindmap was figuring out where to start and how I would break up each act. Once I figured that out it was much easier to put my ideas on the screen.  Being able to look at the story broken up by act allows you to get a better understanding of the story. It also allowed me to make connections that I may have not noticed prior. The amount of love in this play is unreal; it seems like a big love triangle. Mindmap has a wide variety of tools to play with to give you what best suits your needs. The digital tools allowed me to take notes and better group categories together. Mindmap as a digital tool is essential to use and opens up many different ways to help you understand what you are reading. You’re able to break up and categorize everything much simpler than if you were writing by hand. The ability to split things up into groups and to make subtopics for each group was very useful in helping me understand the reading. By having subtopics attached to the bigger idea it allows you to understand what led to the main topic. A lot of the topics that I chose to highlight in my summary of the book I believe helped me to understand the storyline as well as the characters. A majority of what I chose to include shows you a lot of the development that the characters had gone through. The beginning portion of this play was surrounded by death and grief, but that changed into love and violence. Many people were fighting over the love of others and were putting their needs secondary. Antonio got arrested for who he thought was Sebasitan and Malvolio looked like an imbecile. This play shows you what love will make someone do and I did not fully realize that until I used a mindmap. Everything in this play is derived from the idea of love. Mindmap is extremely useful and should be used more often throughout English. For my Mindmap I chose to break up each act and dive into the most important parts. I highlighted what stood out to me while reading and put it as a sub-topic. I was able to make connections between different acts and noticed that many things were foreshadowed early in the play. It also allowed me to understand the characters and there decision-making better. Tools that this website has are extremely rare and give insights to the readings that may have been unnoticed at first. Without mindmap I would not have fully understood what I was reading or the main plot of the play. I was really struggling to understand at first, but the tools on this website gave me the resources I needed. 

With technological advances there are many different ways to read books. Ebooks, scanned copies, and printed books are a few of the ways you can read.  Printed books are my favorite to use. I love the smell of the pages, and the sound of the paper as you turn the page. You get to read the story the way it was intended to be read when reading from a printed book. There are benefits to using Ebooks, accessible anywhere and anytime. Ebooks are much easier to purchase, and are much more portable. The scanned copies show you the struggle the book had gone through to survive. The majority of the pages are ripped. The language in the scanned book is also referred to as “good” English. If you like authenticity then the scanned book is the way to go. I personally like the printed book best. I can take the book wherever I please and don’t have to worry about it dying on me. I also feel that using a scanned copy or ebook is strenuous on people’s eyes. There are also many different types of ebooks and finding the one you like to use may be hard to find. Ebooks also don’t last forever, they can break at any time. If you take good care of a printed version of a book, it can last for generations. I personally like being able to hold the book in my hand and feel the pages. I am not a huge fan of technology and think that it ruins relationships. Many people can become connected to their books and having an online version of the book cuts off that connection. My favorite book of all time is The Blind Side. I have a copy of the book on my dresser right next to my bed. You are unable to have that kind of connection when you are reading from a kindle. The biggest upside to reading from a printed copy of the book is that there are definitions of some of the words. The language that is used in the printed copies are slightly more updated then the actual scanned copy. Printed copies also allow the author to make money for their product. Ebooks and scanned copies could be illegally copied and then the author makes no money off their work. The scanned copy was my least favorite to read, due to the language, as well as, how worn down the pages were. I was more focused on the condition of the paper than I was on what I was supposed to be reading. That’s also an issue for me when it comes to reading on an ebook.Having the printed copy in my hand allows me to put down my phone and not worry about who posted something new on twitter. I will stick with a printed version of a book for as long as I possibly can.

Be yourself; Everyone else is already taken.

— Oscar Wilde.

This is the first post on my new blog. I’m just getting this new blog going, so stay tuned for more. Subscribe below to get notified when I post new updates.