Year of Wonders
A Journal of the Plague Year
Eyam 1665-6
 Restoration England
 After the Civil War - uncertain times
 Derbyshire District - Village of fewer than 500
 Plague arrived in 1665
 In fiction we can see how the plague tested ordinary
and not so ordinary people
Anna Frith
 ‘not a child to quail at shadows after all’ p. 233
 young woman already widowed by the harsh life of
the lead mining society
 Independent and resourceful, she has ‘faced more
terrors than many warriors’ p. 15
 Rises to the challenge of her ordeal, she has ‘been
tempered and made strong’ p. 274
Her role in the text
Protagonist and narrator recounts
the story of the village and her
struggle to not only cope, but
shows real determination and care
for others throughout the ordeal
Her relationship with her
employers, Elinor and Michael
Mompellion are integral to her
story
Her family background, Joss Bont,
her father and her Stepmother
Aphra affect her reactions to events
Modern concerns
 Brooks has created a ‘modern
woman’ who shares many of the
author’s concerns; how women
cope in times of stress, how
women live in restricted societies,
how women can defy social
norms.
 This is also evident in Anys and
Mem who are unconventional
and in Elinor who is deeply
intelligent and compassionate
 Links to Middle East are also
concerns of Brooks. Mentions of
Avicenna and Musalman
(Muslims); the ‘marriage’ to
Ahmed Bey in Oran.
Educated Woman
 Anna is also an educated
woman - highly intelligent learns to read and write from
looking at gravestones, learns
Latin and Arabic ‘I had always
loved high language’ p. 36
 Elinor kindles her love of
books ‘bade me borrow any
book I chose.’ p. 9
 She translates the Latin
Michael uses ‘Falsus in uno,
falsus in omnibus’ correctly as
‘untrue in one thing, untrue in
everything’ which shocks
Mompellion
Anna’s Family
 Joss Bont is an unsympathetic
character who we are invited to
have strong feelings of distaste for
‘My father’s croft had ever been a
joyless place’ p. 7
 He put the branks on his first wife
and threatens to do it to Anna
(see page 133)
 His background is revealed as
abusive, however, we can see that
Anna has also suffered and has
allowed this to make her more
compassionate and perceptive
 His greed and weakness are his
undoing and the village and his
own family leave him to die
Anna’s Stepmother
 Aphra was married to Joss as a
last resort when she was 26 (p.
40)
 ‘she was a shrewd woman my
stepmother in spite of all her
superstitious fancies’ p. 107
 She knows how to handle him
‘I have my own ways of
bridling that mule’ p. 198 and
is as avaricious and mean
spirited as he is, although
somewhat more pragmatic
 She only values Anna for what
she can get from her
Elinor
 Elinor is Anna’s hero, she is intelligent
and patient, kind and hard working
‘The frail body was paired with a
sinewy mind...possessed with a driving
energy to make and do’ p. 35
 ‘because of her I had known the warmth
of a motherly concern’ ‘I had had a
teacher’ ‘she was my friend and I loved
her’ p. 234
 Encourages her learning and helps her
to develop as a person ‘you know a very
great deal more than you think you do’
p. 121
 Anna is jealous of the closeness shared between
Elinor and Michael ‘‘for the sin of my presumption
and my jealousy’ p. 235
 ‘I was jealous of both of them at once. Of him,
because Elinor loved him, and I hungered for a
greater share of her love’ p. 229
 Elinor shares her secrets with Anna about her
pregnancy to a young man out of wedlock and how
Michael made a ‘sacrifice’ in marrying her. p. 155
Michael
 Anna is tending a broken Michael at the
beginning of the novel. She stays longer than a
servant should to try and help him. ‘A servant has
no right to stay once she’s dismissed’. p 4
 We find out his loss on page 9 ‘I tell myself I do it
for her. Why else would I do it after all?’ Anna’s
lack of certainty here hints at her feelings for
Michael.
 He arrived in the village on Anteros, young,
powerful and passionate ‘I’d forgotten what his
eyes could do’ p. 4
 Anna sleeps with Michael ‘‘taking him in my arms
as Elinor surely would’ p. 175
 He reveals his arrogance and hypocrisy in the way he
treated Elinor ‘ I deemed that she should atone by
living some part of her life with her lusts unrequited.
The more I could make her love me, the more her
penance might weigh in the balance to equal her sin.’
p. 281
 Anna sees then his ‘unnatural coldness’ and
‘perversion’ p. 284
Anys Gowdie
 ‘the kind of power a woman like Anys might yield’
p. 40
 ‘Why would I marry? I’ll not be made any man’s
chattel’ p. 54
 People thought in terms of ‘dark and light’ and
‘Anys Gowdie confounded such thinking’ p. 55
 Anys becomes a scapegoat ‘fought you with the only
weapon she had to hand - your own ugly thoughts
and evil doubting of one another!’ p. 95
‘a
worthy
life’s
work’
 Anna openly shows her flaws ‘my loose tongue had
helped betray her’ p. 91
 Her mission in life is to heal ‘I had seen so much
death that I would try to save a life if I could’ p. 285
 She helps even those she dislikes.
 She begins her new life after the birth of the child
Ahmed Bey names Aisha - meaning both ‘life’ and
‘bread’
 When the child was born to Mrs Bradford Anna tells
us ‘’I looked into her deep blue eyes and saw
reflected there the dawn of my own new life’ p. 287
 ‘let’s go and live since we have no choice in it’ p. 273
 ‘I wondered if fate had marked me to be the next in
the long line of women that Anys had once spoken
of...’ p. 268
 she loses her faith in God, but not her hope p. 301
Key Themes
 Marriage and motherhood
 social hierarchy - class and control
 responses to adversity - testing of society and
individuals
 competing world views - sacred, secular,
superstitious
Marriage and Motherhood
 the perils women face just because of their sex
 unhappy marriages across all social classes
(Bradfords, Mompellions, Bonts, Gordons)
 Urith Gordon must obey her husband in all things
 Anys rejects marriage
 Lib Hancock and her mother ‘shackled to their
menfolk as surely as the plough to the shares’ p. 55
 Elinor, childless, ‘mothered those who weren’t
mothered enough in their own crowded crofts’ p. 38
 Anna is defined by her role as mother ‘Umm Ja-mee’
p. 303
 Aisha and Elinor give her reason to live
 Anys predicts Anna’s ‘arms will not be empty
forever’ p. 84
Social
Hierarchy
 Bradfords at the top of the social scale but morally
repugnant
 society is undergoing profound change - ‘wealth and
connection are no shield against plague’ p. 60
 Anna is a servant - she is, at times, in a precarious
position - avoids the Bradford’s son because of the
possibility of rape
 Elizabeth asserts her incredulity that ‘the housemaid
knows more than a London surgeon’ p. 285
 Anna challenges Mompellion at the end ‘have you
taken leave of yours? (senses)’
 She is not a typical servant - educated, intelligent and
as such defies the usual social norms for a woman of
her class. Her learning and the way she reacts to the
times mark her as different.
Responses to Adversity
 Bradfords flee the village
 Villagers accept self-imposed quarantine
 some people are used as scapegoats (Gowdies)
 Isolation - Merrick
 Opportunism - ‘nick’ Merry Wickford’s stow
 exploitation - Joss Bont and Aphra
 Superstition - Kate Talbot, buying charms from
‘Anys’ Ghost’
 Repentance - Jakob Merrill’s provision for his
daughter and his saving of Brand
 Social cohesion- increased attendance at church
services by the non-conformists
 Promiscuity - Jane Martin
 Flagellation - John Gordon and those who later
followed him
 Madness - Aphra
 Bravery - Elinor and Anna in the Wickford mine
 Despair - Michael and (briefly) Anna - p. 268
 Loss of faith - Michael and Anna
 Strength - Anna
Competing World
Views
 miners are ‘superstitious men’ p. 175
 Gowdies - herbal lore and spells p. 84 this becomes
their undoing when people are looking for someone
to blame
 people question their beliefs - how can God be so
‘prodigal’? p. 135
 Anna has a ‘revelation’ p. 214-15 ‘perhaps each was
false equally’
 Michael questions God when he recites the prayer
‘Your wife will be like a fruitful vine....’ p. 19
 Michael believes God a ‘poor listener’ p. 17 and finds
that he has ‘given himself up to his own darkness’
271
 ‘My whole life, all I have done, all I have said, all I
have felt, has been based upon a lie’ p. 282
 Anna finds that the cross, upon which she used to
find comfort no longer ‘had anything to say’ p. 283