Containing Epidemics through Metaphor

This essay will examine two “graphic novel” depictions of WWI epidemics: one that depicts scientific advances during the dysentery epidemic on the European front in World War One; and another that depicts the Spanish influenza epidemic unfolding across the United States of America. Both texts narrativise an epidemic through a verbal and visual engagement with historical and scientific discourses. These texts were produced within five years of our current Covid-19 pandemic and show us how language (visual and verbal) can be employed to make sense of a plague threat that involves an invisible “enemy”. The way that meaning is blended and elaborated throughout each text can help us understand how a figurative framing of a pandemic might help open up new understandings or possibilities. Popular imagination can productively link with tropes from the past, particularly tropes that were in play as understandings of the role of science shifted.