Disease and pandemics play a large role in the song “Epiphany” by Taylor Swift. “Epiphany” by Taylor Swift celebrates the efforts of first responders and doctors, especially during the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. The pain of the loved ones of the dying patient (“Hold your hand through plastic now/Doc I think she’s crashin’ out/And some things you just can’t speak about) is explored in graphic detail. Taylor Swift sympathizes with their pain and the struggles that the doctors and first responders face. She also compares this struggle against disease to the struggles of the world wars, and to wars in general, with the comparison of the soldiers in war to the doctors and first responders during the COVID pandemic. In both cases, a fierce and heartbreaking confrontation with mortality exists, and many heroes form from this conflict. “Soon You’ll Get Better” has a similar struggle, this time written about Andrea Swift’s struggle with cancer (She is the mother of Taylor Swift). The medical scene once again finds itself in vivid detail, with the fear of losing a loved one taking center stage. Faith often feeds on desperation, and “desperate people find faith, so now I pray to Jesus too.” Even in the modern age, there is often only so much that doctors can do. The responses of loved ones in this case often result in a feeling of helplessness and dread at the impending loss, as can be seen in “You’ll get better soon/’Cause you have to. And I hate to make this all about me/But who am I supposed to talk to? What am I supposed to do if there’s no you?”. Taylor Swift feared losing her mother to that cancer condition, and the results are heartbreaking. (Thankfully her mother survived). Even after the immediate mortality presents less of a problem, the old normal remains unattainable, as seen in “This won’t go back to normal, if it ever was.” Disease strikes fear and causes irreversible changes even when it does not cause mortal injury.
Diseases also play a large part in many works of literature, which makes sense since diseases have played a major part in human mortality since the beginning of human society. The books “Crime and Punishment” by Fyodor Dostoevsky and Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens feature the disease of tuberculosis (or at that time, called “consumption”). In the time of Charles Dickens, doctors and scientists did not understand tuberculosis very well, which hampered the search for a cure. Tuberculosis/Consumption often had symptoms of wasting away, which had comparisons to what Dickens saw as wasteful urban consumption. In this case, the literal consumption wasting the body away represents the consumption of resources and manpower by inefficient city construction. In the Victorian era, bad sanitation in cities worsened tuberculosis, and Dickens saw this comparison. Another reason tuberculosis featured prominently in the 1800s, partially because it did not have a cure back then. As a result, many writers in the 1800s saw tuberculosis as a manifestation of inevitable mortality. In both Taylor Swift and classic literature, diseases took their toll in terms of impact.
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