Written by Ellen Bryant Voigt, Kyrie, a collection of poems and sonnets, discusses the Spanish Flu pandemic that ravaged the world in the early 20th century. Specifically, Voigt’s Kyrie depicts the pain and emotions one deals with during tragedy. Voigt’s writing depicts this seemingly forgotten pandemic through reliving and enlivening the lost voices of this time. Throughout Kyrie, Voigt displays the emotions felt during this tragedy and how this forgotten pandemic affected and ended, millions of lives. In Voigt’s last entry of the Kyrie collection, Voigt presents a poem of much different tone that challenges the reader to question the nature of the Spanish Flu and why it has been so easily forgotten. Voigt uses natural and impassioned imagery to enliven the suffering victims of the Spanish Flu endured by comparing the repetitive frequency of tragedy to nature and ultimately ponder the purpose of reliving past tragedy. …show more content…
According to Emily Breidbart, the Spanish Flu’s rapid transmission was caused by “[the] crowding and migration of the First World War” (Breidbart), in which civilians, refugees, and soldiers were constantly shifting around the globe. Overall, the Spanish flu ravaged a world lacking the medicinal knowledge to understand it and ill-equipped to combat its malicious symptoms (Breidbart). However, the Spanish flu is often unknown by many although it ravaged not only the United States but nearly the entire world
Disease and war go hand and hand in war. Throughout history, any major military conflict opens a can of worms of disease and death, by moving people to new environments, as well as, cramming them into confined quarters the perfect habitat for human pathogens to prosper. At the turn of the last century Cuba was seeking independence from Spain, which the Spanish resisted by relocating rebel groups. This relocation and increase in density escalated the already problematic yellow fever epidemic. The fear of relocation caused many Cubans to immigrate to the United States, many with yellow fever in tow. While the United States joined the war effort for many reasons, including the prosperity of the sugar industry, the spread of freedom, or the sinking of the Maine, it was the pressing fear of disease that led to an imminent threat to the people of the Gulf Coast. This threat materialized after the US forces landed in Havana and experienced the disease firsthand. In response to the overwhelming number of infected soldiers, the US Government sent a group of Army physicians to undergo a major sanitation effort to clean up Cuba. The work of Walter Reed and the second Yellow Fever Commission through their sanitation efforts led to many advances in the understanding of disease and population health. Starting with the threat of escaping Cuban refugees to the treating of infected Soldiers to the advancement in epidemiology, yellow fever had a major impact on not only the US entrance to the war with Spain, but to the development of modern medicine and the first American Empire.
There are only two types of people in a time of war and crisis, those who survive and those who die. Elie Wiesel’s novel, Night, shows how Elie, himself, faces difficult problems and struggles to survive World War II. Wilfred Owen’s poem, “Dulce et Decorum Est”, tells a story about a young soldier thinking of himself before others during World War I. The poem “Mary Hamilton” shows how a mother killed her child
Nancy K. Bristow, American Pandemic, The Lost Worlds of the 1918 Influenza Epidemic (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 193
The influenza or flu pandemic of 1918 to 1919, the deadliest in modern history, infected an estimated 500 million people worldwide–about one-third of the planet’s population at the time–and estimates place the number of victims anywhere from 25 to 100 million. More than 25 percent of the U.S. population became sick, and some 675,000 Americans died during the pandemic. The 1918 flu was first observed in Europe, the U.S. and parts of Asia before swiftly spreading around the world. Surprisingly, many flu victims were young, otherwise healthy adults. At the time, there were no effective drugs or vaccines to treat this killer flu strain or prevent its spread. In the U.S., citizens were ordered to wear masks, and schools, theaters and other public
...ssor Heather MacDougall, “July – 11 November 1918: Pandemic Influenza on the Battlefield and Homefront,” Lecture delivered 9 November, 2011, HIST 191, University of Waterloo
With such a rapid mortality rate the epidemic lead to many adversities within the various social structures throughout the western world. All social classes were affected, although the lower classes, living together in unhygienic environments, were obviously most vulnerable. Consequently, many medieval people began to isolate themselves away out of fear of infection. Parents fled from their children, husbands left wives, and sick relatives were d...
The traumatizing scenes a man experiences during a plague probably haunt him throughout his life – if he manages to survive. In Jack London’s 1912 novella, “The Scarlet Plague”, London brilliantly narrates the life of an elderly man, “Granser” who managed to survive the lethal hands of the plague that decimated millions sixty years ago, reverting the once “colossal civilization” to cave-man existence. (16) Granser recounts the emergence of the Scarlet Plague and its catastrophic impact on society as he tells his savage grandsons the world before and after the epidemic. London’s use of imagery offers a graphic appeal to open the reader’s eye and ears to the physical pandemonium of the plague, evoking the reader’s soul to the themes the plague symbolizes: reclamation of
One of the most virulent strains of influenza in history ravaged the world and decimated the populations around the world. Present during World War I, the 1918 strain of pandemic influenza found many opportunities to spread through the war. At the time, science wasn’t advanced enough to study the virus, much less find a cure; medical personnel were helpless when it came to fighting the disease, and so the flu went on to infect millions and kill at a rate 25 times higher than the standard.
When the plague first reached Europe, people panicked. They wanted to survive, many began to abandon what they had and moved to villages and country sides in hope of not catching the disease. Families abandoned each other and left children to die. The horror that people in Europe were feeling was traumatic...
The Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1919 occurred during the midst of World War I, and it would claim more lives than the war itself. The disease erupted suddenly without a forewarning and spread rapidly across the globe. It seemed as though all of humanity had fallen under the mercy of this deadly illness. Influenza had very clear symptoms as described by William Collier in his letter to The Lancet. After a patient seizes their temperature can run up to 105° or more while their pulse averages at about 90 beats per minute. The high temperature and low pulse are frequently combined with epistaxis (nosebleed) and cyanosis (blueness of the skin). The epistaxis is caused by the high temperature and the cyanosis is caused by a lack of oxygen due to the decreased pulse (Kent 34). The author of Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1919, Susan Kinglsey Kent, provides a brief history of the pandemic and documents from the time period. Many of the included documents show how unprepared and unorganized governments attempted to contain and control a disease they had never experienced, and how the expectations of the governments changed as a result of their successes and failures.
She did not survive the Reagan Administration. I am here because my son and I may not survive four more years of leaders who say they care, but do nothing.” In this appeal Mrs. Glaser is appealing to her audience’s emotions, especially the emotions one feels when talking about their family like love and empathy. She mentions that her daughter has died because of this disease and that her son and herself are dying as well to show that this is a disease that can affect anyone and that it is crucial to work on cures or vaccinations to prevent others from suffering the way her family has. No mother or father wants to watch their children suffer and die because of a disease, so Mrs. Glaser uses her experience to appeal to those emotions.
Kolata, Gina. Flu: The Story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search for the Virus that Cause It. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999. Print.
‘The Falling Soldier’ is one of many poems by Duffy which deals with the subject of human mortality. Duffy expresses what could have been over a harsh reality; this is characteristic of her as also seen in ‘Last Post’ and ‘Passing Bells’ which both seem to be largely influenced by poet peer Wilfred Owen’s personal experiences of war. In the ‘The Falling Soldier’ Duffy paradoxically captures the essence of Robert Capa’s famous photograph of a man falling after being shot during the Spanish Civil War (1936). She employs the form of an impersonal narrative voice, using second person to question the possibilities, to explore the tragic and cyclical nature of war. The futile reality of war contrasts to her central theme in ‘The Bees’ anthology of bees symbolising the grace left in humanity.
At the time, the Influenza of 1918 was called the Spanish Flu. Spain was not involved in the expanding great war (i.e., World War I) and therefore was not censoring it's press. However, Germany, Britain, and America were censoring their newspapers for anything that would lower morale. Therefore, Spain was the first country to publish accounts of the pandemic (Barry 171 and Furman 326), even though the pandemic most likely started in either France or the United States. It was also unique in it's deadliness; it “killed more people in a year than the Black Death of the Middle Ages killed in a century” (Barry 5). In the United States, the experience during the pandemic varied from location to location. Some areas were better off whereas some were hit horribly by the disease, such as Philadelphia. It also came as a shock to many, though some predicted it's coming; few thought it would strike with the speed and lethality that it did. Though the inherent qualities of the flu enabled its devastation of the country, the response to the flu was in part responsible as well. The response to the pandemic was reasonable, given the dire situation, but not sufficient enough to prevent unnecessary death and hardship, especially in Philadelphia.
This disease was first diagnosed in 1918 and it was referred to as the “Spanish Flu” or “La Grippe.” To this day it is thought to of been the same strain as the swine influenza however it is still unclear. For this particular outbreak it’s not exactly know whether humans contracted the virus from pigs or vice versa. Either way between 20-40 million people died from it. The first confirmed case of H1N1 in the U.S. was diagnosed on April 15th, 2009. The CDC quickly began developing a vaccine due to the fact that it was declared a public health emergency about a week later by the government. It tu...