Emotions of Fear in Narratives about the Plague and the Contemporary Pandemic

Abstract

Narratives about the plague and other pandemics essentially induce fear and predict death and hunger, triggering a variety of emotions among people, particularly anxiety. The paper discusses how the motifs of plague narratives – despite being ancient, traditional and old – resurface from the collective memory and the subconscious as people now have experiences comparable to those endured by humanity centuries ago. Although the COVID-19 pandemic that confronted the planet from 2019 to 2022 is not as deadly as the plague, it is still an ongoing existential threat. A discussion is also presented of the ways that old traditions and social constructs re-emerge in contemporary narratives and discourses about COVID-19, and how the atmosphere of fear affects the emotional and social lives of the people, along with their narratives, jokes, fake news, and the conspiracy theories that have been circulating online.

Keywords

• pandemic
• plague
• covid-19
• folklore
• contemporary legends