Doctors warned people to stay away from the medical tent where patients were being treated in order to avoid contagion. This means to avoid the spread or transfer of diseases or infection. Contagion means the communication of illnesses from one person to another, most especially when in close contact.
The husband is a gentle man, from what the wife says he couldn’t ever be mean to anyone, that he is innocent. Hope this helps any :)
The decay of beauty.
These two literary works both talk about women and femininity. Plath's poem is a depressive account of a mirror which sees nothing but the opposite wall, and every morning the face of a woman appears, searching for signs of aging. However, that woman was first a girl, and now she becomes an old woman. The decay of beauty is the main indicator of transience, which drowns the meaning of life.
In Welty's Petrified Man the decay of beauty is also not the central motif. The story is about the triviality of small people's lives in a small American town. Nothing really happens. Two women talk about trifles of their everyday lives. But the motif appears when Leota and Mrs. Fletcher talk about the latter's hair falling out.
