NAPATSORN TREESAP

While reading “Decameron, First Day” by Giovanni Boccaccio, I would like to give a compliment to this work, for the author wrote a story that captured my feeling very well. I feel tragic for what the disease like plague spread across the town and caused bad things to happen to people. Not only that, after reading this story, I could not stop thinking about the similarity of the situation between plague and Covid-19 even though these two diseases and the time that occurred are different from each other.

In the story, the author describes the symptoms of the diseases that people at that time feel afraid that they would get because it could lead to death within three days. People have to live only in the house in order to protect themselves, and people who died did not have funerals as usual. I could imagine that most people died from the part that describes people were holding some flowers, herbs, and spiceries for smelling the scent of these things in order to avoid smelling the stench from the dead bodies.

For once, I want to have the power to stop time, for people could still have time to find a way out to save many lives. Reading this story makes me realize what I am afraid the most. It is not the fear of losing something valuable, but it is the fear of seeing someone you love have suffered from the pain and the fear of losing them. These are the most terrifying things for me.

Moreover, there is the part that I read and I feel really sad. It describes that even families abandoned each other. I see the dark side of humans reflected from this, and it makes me think of some words that I always heard people say since I was young. They said,

“You only see real friendship when you are down.”

I understand these words when I am older. For me, you cannot blame them for what they are or who they become even though those people are your friends, family, or the people that you care because that is the nature of humans. You cannot expect them to be good all the time. That is the reason why we are called human.

Apart from this, the situation of the plague that happened is quite unbelievable because it is very similar to the Covid-19 that we all have faced in nowadays; for example, it is an infectious disease, so people have to stay only in the house in order to be saved. It is undeniable that Covide-19 reminds most people around the world to think of the past about the plague that many humans had died from the infection, and I also feel like the world had warned us about the future since the plague happened. At this hard time, I could see people who walk in the street become afraid of each other. Some people have lost some opportunities. Some lost a friend and family. It is like our nightmare. The situation still looks worrying right now, but I still hope that 2021 will be better for humankind.