Anna Frith's Change In 'Year Of Wonders'

‘Year of Wonders’ is a complex exploration of human adaptability in the face of adversity. It essentially explores the way a community of people change in response to catastrophe. Geraldine Brooks uses this authorial concern in order to explore the roles of God and nature in the eyes of Eyam’s villagers. In ‘Year of Wonders’ there is a consistent view of a testing, omnipotent, ‘responsible’ God and few characters recognise the power of nature. This is presented by constant religious involvement in the text and little recognition or reliance on natural remedy. The character of Anna Frith however emerges enlightened to the importance of natural remedy in ‘Year of Wonders’. Her contact to each catastrophe in her path is shown to affect her so…show more content…
With consistent and repeated experience of ‘the Plague’ not only does Anna’s behaviour change in accordance but her character also undergoes changes. When Anna is confronted with the Plague at the outset through her ‘lodger’, George Viccars, she flounders in reaction – ‘unsure’ of what to do because as the rector puts it ‘death is always hard … and untimely death harder than most.’. Such ‘grief’ and ‘emotion’ is also shown at this – ‘a death of a [stranger]’. But as the Plague continues to make its way ‘through the village’ Anna’s character becomes tempered as faced even ‘daily with’ death she begins to see it as ‘simply a thing of nature’ – gone are the ‘deep’ reactions to the Plague victims by the end of the text. This is clearly shown when she ‘tends’ the Mowbray’s ‘infant’ ‘fallen to the Plague’ – one of the last victims shown in ‘Year of Wonders’ – with a sympathy that exceeds to no more than a ‘thought’ of ‘the poor infant’. Thus this catastrophe’s influence is that of hardening Anna’s ‘heart’ to such ‘tragedy’ and enabling her to ‘survive’ and ‘live life’ without ‘breaking’ in a Plague-ridden…show more content…
In the wake of ‘Elinor’s death’ Anna is pushed together with Michael Mompellion according to ‘Elinor’s wishes’ – and in such company she finds ‘[her] own confusion’ of ‘faith’ influenced by his belief that ‘all our sacrifice … had been for nothing’, for no God and for no purpose. Also in the aftermath of ‘Elinor’s death’ Anna’s question of ‘Why [did Elinor have to die?]’- a “Why?’ that ‘nag[s] at [her] unquiet mind through too many sleepless nights’- brings her to the eventual conclusion ‘that there is no God’. Though she is asked in Eyam ‘Do you still believe in God?’ she can give no answer that would not ‘damn’ her in a ‘still faithful’ community. Likewise when she ‘pleads’ with Elizabeth Bradford to give up her mother’s ‘bastard’ she ‘could not draw up anything to follow … no Bible verse, no scrap of liturgy’ – no religious ‘supplication’ because she doesn’t ‘believe’ anymore. Brooks uses the compelling imagery of a ‘swipe of a dampened rag’ that ‘erased’ all her ‘rote’ learned ‘religion’ to convey emphatically Anna’s realisation that not only has she ‘lost the means to pray’ but as she so aptly tells ‘the Ahmed Bey’ in the epilogue of ‘Year of Wonders’ she ‘cannot say that [she has] faith anymore’. Therefore it is catastrophe that leads Anna to change her very theism – a rare change in times