Year of Wonders
It is easy to underestimate the role of
Michael Mompellion in the events
that took place in Eyam in 1666.
Six propositions
Proposition 1
Mompellion is the instigator of the key actions
in the novel, which includes the final decision of
Anna to leave Eyam.
This makes him central to the action and the
unfolding of events during 1666.
Proposition 1: elaboration
• Preaches to quarantine Eyam
– Had consulted Thomas Stanley
– Thus a carefully considered decision
– Had agonised over it: ‘had been thin lipped and taut as a
bowstring as if struggling to control a terrible rage.”
• The great burning when all villagers had to shed their
possessions: villagers were ‘frowning’ and ‘shaking heads’
– Decision based on the death of Urith Gordon
• Decides and announces end of quarantine
– 2nd Sunday in August 1666
– The tragic moment
Proposition 2
Michael Mompellion is a complex character – more
so than Anna and Elinor. He is a man of
contradictions. This makes him more interesting
than either Anna or Elinor. He is at once a loving
husband, a caring priest, charismatic, physically
strong, courageous, articulate and persuasive; but
he is also ‘blind’, arrogant, proud and ultimately
cynical. But then all the characters are ‘flawed
people’.
Proposition 2: elaboration
• Caring : takes in Elinor; stays with George Viccars and others
throughout sickness; calms Anna when children eill; forgives
Brand his theft; helps Maggie Cantwell
• Charismatic: his voice focussed attention on what he said;
‘silken whispers’/’comforting’; gallant knight on Anteros.
• Physically strong: lifts Viccars corpse ‘as if it were nothing’.
• Courageous: confronts Col Bradford; confronts lynch mob;
confronts Josiah Bont after Christopher Unwin’s grave is dug
before he dies.
• Intelligent and intellectual: his sermons are carefully thought
through.
• BUT:
Proposition 2: elaboration (cont)
• ‘Blind’ to some things: fails to fully understand the
developing relationship between Anna and Elinor.
• Arrogant and proud: his treatment of Elinor
throughout their marriage (despite loving her); ‘I
thought I spoke for God. Fool. My whole life … based
on a lie.’
• Capable of profound anger: Jane Martin
Proposition 3
Mompellion’s suffering is magnified because of
The tragic and perhaps ironic fate of losing his
wife, not to the plague, but to Aphra Bont who
goes mad because of what the imprisonment
during the plague does to her and her husband.
Proposition 3 - Elaboration
• Ironically, it is Mompellion’s unwitting act in
separating the skull of Faith Bont from her
Corpse that sends Aphra into the frenzy that kills
Elinor.
• When the plague is over, there being no
deaths in two weeks, Elinor is murdered.
• Is he responsible for her death? Is he naïve?
Proposition 4
There is something tragic about how his life
unfolds.
He is a victim of his own arrogance and pride: he
watches the villagers he came to serve suffer
because of the demands he makes on them
Propsition 4: Elaboration
• He watches villagers die knowing some may have
survived had they been allowed to leave Eyam
• Sees villagers turn in on themselves: Jane Martin,
Kate Talbot, John Gordon, Martin Miller, Randoll
Daniel, Aphra Bont, Josiah Bont.
• ‘Wavers between rage and self-reproach …
(becomes) more difficult to gather up words for
sermons.’
• This becomes more articulate after the death of
Elinor.
Proposition 5
Mompellion’s rise and fall is perhaps the most interesting aspect
of the novel. His faith in God and his love for his people led
him to argue that the villagers of Eyam self-impose a
quarantine; he is betrayed by his faith and the people he chose
to serve.
Proposition 5: Elaboration
• His fall is the greatest: “I thought I spoke for God …
all I have done, all I have said, all I have felt, has been
based upon a lie.” (282)
• Loss of his parish; loss of his wife; loss of faith – ‘And
now it seems there is no God and I was wrong.’
• Because of ‘me’, many are dead and faith is lost.
• The man who had worked tirelessly to help his
villagers, will not rise to save Mrs Bradford – that is
left to Anna.
Proposition 6
We empathise with Mompellion and want to
overlook his faults because it is his lot as a
preacher to tend to the dying, which he does
with stamina and unflinching determination,
while Anna and Elinor tend to the living.
He realises his flaws and while he fails to help
Mrs Bradford, he does offer help to Anna.