Year of WondersA Journal of the Plague Year

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

Eyam 1665-6

‘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

Anna Frith

Her role in the textProtagonist 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 ordealHer relationship with her employers, Elinor and Michael Mompellion are integral to her storyHer 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

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

Michael

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

‘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

Anys Gowdie

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’

‘a worthy life’s work’

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

Marriage and motherhood social hierarchy - class and control responses to adversity - testing of society and

individuals competing world views - sacred, secular,

superstitious

Key Themes

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

Marriage and Motherhood

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

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

Social Hierarchy

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.

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

Responses to Adversity

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

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’

Competing World Views

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