Research Information System
Motif Akademi Halkbilimi Dergisi, vol.17, no.46, pp.877-892, 2024 (TRDizin)
The Pull of the Stars (2020) is a compelling, poignant historical novel by the Irish literary historian and novelist Emma Donoghue. The novel talks about the Spanish flu pandemic which is chronicled in the story through the experiences of an Irish nurse, Julia Power, who works in a maternity/fever ward in a nameless hospital in Dublin. This article provides a concise overview of the deadliest pandemics in history, their death tolls, and their reverberations. In so doing, this article focuses mainly on the repercussions of the Spanish flu pandemic, the shortages of medical and food supplies, and the deteriorating social and security situation in Ireland during that period. In addition, the article displays the parallels between the Spanish flu pandemic and the coronavirus pandemic. Furthermore, the article ends up by concisely examining Ireland’s political environment at that time, which includes the aftermath of the First World War. The novel gives us two war-victim examples Tim and his friend, along with thousands of massacred persons only in Dublin. The article debates that the 1918 pandemic might be an outcome of four years of killing, slaughtering, bombarding, and unburied corpses. This is a natural reaction from nature against humans’ actions, crimes, and endless wars.