Ticking Mind - Year of Wonders Study Notes

Ticking Mind - Year of Wonders Study Notes Year of Wonders Study Notes

Historical Background

The Great Plague –

George Viccars lay with his head pushed to one side by a lump the size of a newborn piglet, a great, shiny, yellow-purple knob of pulsing flesh…Then the purple thing burst all of a sudden open, slitting like a pea pod and issuing forth creamy pus all spotted through with sheds of dead flesh. P. 43-43

I could see it was a dead rat, a sorry little corpse, all wet and rheumy-eyed with a smear of bright blood around its muzzle…The woodpile is full of them…p. 72

…the damp after the heat brought the fleas beyond any infestation…In my house, the fleas feasted on my tender children…p. 73

To save our lives, my friends, I believe we must undertake here a great burning…p. 239

The plague of the novel is based upon the Great Plague of 1665. The plague mostly affected London where 20% of the population perished. However, other places, like Eyam, were also affected. Symptons of the plague came in various forms: sneezing, the appearance of plague rings (that looked like flowers or tokens) on the skin or, the most painful and dramatic form, pus filled bulbs under the armpit or in the groin area. 17th Century science and medicine has no understanding of how the plague spread or how to stop it. Cats and dogs were blamed for spreading the plague in London. In desperation to find a prevention or cure for the plague which they didn’t understand and which was killing thousands, people turned to all manner of strange supposed remedies – herbal or supernatural. Today we know that the plague was spread for the most part by fleas who infected people when their bites. Fleas were carried by many things – rats for example, or even bolts of cloth. Fleas could be killed by the cold or, as was the case in London, by fire. A huge part of London burnt down in 1666 in what was called the great fire of London. This ended the plague outbreak.

Medicine in the 17th Century –

The poor little soul was covered in squirming leeches…p. 74

It contains a palliative…The man who sent it is a well esteemed physician…’It contains a toad’…p. 85

(the) barber’s surgeon… used a thatcher’s hook…I saw the tiny, torn off arm of my still-born sister. P. 120

Although towards the end of the 17th century medical knowledge began to improve, scientific understanding of the body was still very

1 Ticking Mind - Year of Wonders Study Notes Ticking Mind - Year of Wonders Study Notes limited. It was not known, for example, that blood circulated around the body. Draining people of blood, through leeches, was thought wise to rid people of ‘bad’ blood. The most common medical practitioners were barber surgeons – men who not only cut hair and shaved men, but also operated on people. Barber surgeons usually had no professional training.

The Status of Women in the 17th Century –

I think you like to come and go without a man’s say so. P. 54

I’m not made to be a man’s chattel. P. 54

I saw my mother’s face framed in the iron bars…the inhuman sounds that came from her throat as the iron bit pressed hard against her tongue. He had clapped the branks on her after she had cursed him in public for his constant drunkenness. P. 133

The role of women is depicted with special emphasis in Year of Wonders. Brooks is careful to show the reader what few rights women have and what powers men can have over them. Laws of the time legalised wife beating and when married a woman transferred the ownership of all things – her body included – to her husband. Widows were the only women who tended to be independent. Below is a text from the early 17th century which summarises the duties of man and wife:

A Godly Form of Household Government (1598)

The husband his duty is, first, to love his wife as his own flesh. Then to govern her in all duties that properly concern the state of marriage, in knowledge, in wisdom, judgment, and justice. Thirdly, to dwell with her. Fourthly, to use her in all due benevolence, honestly, soberly, and chastely.

The wife, her duty is, in all reverence and humility, to submit and subject herself to her husband in all such duties as properly belong to marriage. Secondly, therein to be an help unto him, according to God's ordinance. Thirdly, to obey his commandments in all things which he may command by the authority of an husband. Fourthly and lastly, to give him mutual benevolence.

The duty of the husband is to get goods; and of the wife, to gather them together and save them. The duty of the husband is to travel abroad to seek living; and the wife's duty is to keep the house. The duty of the husband is to get money and provision; and of the wife's, not vainly to spend it. The duty of the husband is to deal with many men; and of the wife's to talk with few. The duty of the husband is to be intermeddling; and of the wife, to be solitary and withdrawn. The duty of the man is to be skillful in talk; and of the wife, to boast of silence. The duty of the husband is to be a giver, and of the wife, to be a saver. The duty of the man is to apparel himself as he may; and of the woman, as it becometh her. The duty of the husband is to be lord of all; and of the wife, to give account of all. The duty of the husband is to dispatch all things without door; and of the wife, to 2 Ticking Mind - Year of Wonders Study Notes Ticking Mind - Year of Wonders Study Notes oversee and give order for all things within the house. Now where the husband and wife performeth these duties in their house, we may call it a college of quietness. The house wherein these are neglected, we may term it a hell.

Witches and Witchcraft –

I knew how easy it was for a widow to be turned witch in the common mind…p. 38

‘Let’s swim her!’ yelled an ale-soused voice. p. 90

I saw plainly what she tried to hide. It was a spell…p. 145

From the 15th through to the 17th century a general hysteria that witches existed and were evil consumed Europe. So much so that it is estimated that between 50,000 to 80,000 individuals were executed, believed to be witches. Since it was common for accused witches to be burnt at the stake, the witch hysteria is often known as ‘the burning times’. Accused witches were often subjected to ‘ordeals’ which were thought to betray their guilt or show their innocence. Once such ordeal was by water where an accused witch was dunked – if they sank they were innocent, if they floated they had supernatural powers. Today, many historians believe that witch executions were in fact a form of ‘gender-cide’. Typically women who were marginalized from society, had knowledge of the healing properties of plants, or had other knowledge or ideas that may have somehow went against the pervasive ignorance or prejudices of the society they were in, found themselves accused of being witches.

Religion –

The Puritans, who are few amongst us now, and sorely pressed, had the running of the village then. It was their sermons we grew up listening to in a church bare of adornment, their notion of what was heathenish that hushed the Sabbath and quieted the church bells…p. 7

Dark and light…that was how I had been taught to view the world. p. 55

My father did not come to Delft, not the first Sunday no any following. In normal times he would have been…set in the stocks for such behaviour. P. 192

As John Gordon moved up the path, I perceived that he stopped, every five paces or so, straightened, and raised the scourge to strike himself. One of the spikes was bent crooked, like a fish hook, so that when it connected with the skin it caught and tore away a tiny piece of flesh. p. 219 3 Ticking Mind - Year of Wonders Study Notes Ticking Mind - Year of Wonders Study Notes

Religion in the 17th century was a serious business. In England, only one form of religion existed – Christianity. And only one form of religion was really sanctioned by the King and parliament – and that was Anglicanism (the Church of England). For a short while, during the mid 17th century, Puritans had become a powerful force. Puritans, as their name implies, believed in what they thought was a very ‘pure’ form of Christianity. They lived simply, dressed simply, worshipped simply and believed the world was simply divided into good and evil aspects. The majority of Christians found Puritanism extreme. In the second half of the 17th century any person who followed a form of Christianity that was not Anglicanism (such as Quakers, who also feature in the novel) was labelled a non-conformist and in some cases persecuted. Flagellants were another form of Christian extremists. Flagellants believed that humans were innately sinful and needed to be punished, thus the self-whipping. The Characters

Anna’s Family:

Anna Frith: Narrator of the novel. Her two young sons, Jamie and Tom, are amongst the first victims of the plague.

Sam Frith: Deceased husband of Anna Frith. Died in a mining accident

Josiah Bont: Anna’s father

Aphra Bont: Josiah Bont’s second wife. All her children die of the plague.

The Religious Leaders:

Elinor Mompellion: The vicar’s wife. Killed by Aphra.

Michael Mompellion: The vicar of Eyam.

Thomas Stanley: A Puritan preacher who resigned from being the village rector because he did not believe in Anglicanism

The Accused Witches:

Anys & Mem Gowdie: Mem Gowdie is a widow who looks after her niece Anys when Any’s mother dies.

The Witch Accusers:

John & Urith Gordon: Accused Mem of being a witch. John becomes a flagellant. Dies falling from a cliff in his sleep.

The Hadfields: Alexander Hadfield was the resident tailor. He is the second husband of Mary. Alexander and his children are the first to die of the plague after George Viccars. Mary accuses Mem of being a witch.

Lib Hancock: Anna’s best friend since childhood. Her husband dies early on from the plague. Accused Mem of being a witch. She dies from the plague. 4 Ticking Mind - Year of Wonders Study Notes Ticking Mind - Year of Wonders Study Notes

Brad & Grace Hamilton: Accused Mem of being a witch. Grace and her children die of the plague

The Plague Victims:

George Viccars: Travelling tailor. First to die of the plague.

George & Cleath Wickford: A Quaker couple. Both die, orphaning their daughter Merry.

Maggie Cantwell: Cook at the Bradford’s. Dies of a stroke after fleeing an angry mob.

Jon Millstone: The aged gravedigger. Dies from overwork.

Kate & Richard Talbot: Richard is a farrier. Kate buys a spell to try and cure him of the plague.

The Survivors:

Colonel Henry Bradford: The rich country gentleman of the village.

Elizabeth Bradford: Daughter of Colonel Bradford.

Mrs Bradford: The adulterous wife of Henry. Her first name is never given.

Brand Rigney: Pantry boy who brings Maggie back to Eyam after she has a stroke.

Alun Houghton: The Barmester who is head of the Body of the Mine which governs the miners.

Christopher Unwin: Survives the plague only to be nearly murdered by Jos Bont.

Jane Martin: Puritan girl who minds Anna’s sons. Her entire family dies of the plague.

Mary and Randoll Daniel: Anna delivers Mary’s first baby.

Anna Frith had a miserable childhood as a daughter of a violent, drunk and lazy father. She married young to the simple, but loving Sam. For Anna, the plague brings incredible loss and grief. However, it also becomes a catalyst for her to change. Her empathy and understanding for the knowledge of the Gowdie’s grow and with it a belief in her independence as a woman. While others turn to superstition in the desperation of the plague, Anna, led by Elinor, turns to science and nature.

Key Quotes:

· I…wished to know how things stood in the world. P. 27 · I think you like to come and go without a man’s say so. P. 54 · I wonder if you know how you have changed. P. 235

5 Ticking Mind - Year of Wonders Study Notes Ticking Mind - Year of Wonders Study Notes · I was meant to go on; away from death and towards life, from birth to birth, from seed to blossom…p. 287 · For I was not Elinor, after all, but Anna. P. 299

Key passages: p. 122-23, p. 273, p. 299

What’s your point of view?

Considering the quotes and passages above, what is your view on the statements below?

· Anna is able to overcome her grief because of the fundamentally different understanding she has of the world to Michael Mompellion.

· Anna is the only woman in the novel who is genuinely independent

Michael Mompellion:

In a way Michael and Elinor Mompellion are complete opposites. Elinor was from a distinguished and rich family, Michael from the poor family of a rector. He was orphaned when his father died and worked on the estate of Elinor’s father. Elinor fell into disgrace when she eloped with a neighbour at 14. He abandoned her and she aborted her pregnancy. Michael, on the other hand, led an apparently blameless youth, working hard under the patronage of Elinor’s father to be educated at Cambridge, to join the church and to marry Elinor. Anna says at one stage that because of Michael’s poor, working background he seems to be able to associate easily with the working families of Eyam. While this is the case in some ways, it is also certainly true that Michael and Elinor have complete opposite attitudes to Anna. Elinor’s attitude is to embrace her has an equal and a friend, Michael’s to remind her of her place.

Key Quotes:

· It was a voice full of light and dark. P. 45 · His body is strong, but I fear that the strength of his will far exceeds it. It can drive him to do what any normal man cannot do. P. 160 · ‘On your knees sinner!’ He took a step towards us, a looming black figure. P. 222 · She has taken the pure vessel of her body and filled it with corruption. P. 222 · None of us is master of himself as we should be in these times. P. 223 · It is for Him to decide who shall suffer; He, and the vicars he appoints to give you penances. P. 227 · The more I could make her love me, the more the penance might weigh in the balance equal to her sin. P. 281 · As for Jane Martin, had I cared for her…I never would have relented, but punished her…p. 281

Key passages to think about: p. 68-71, p. 150-55, p. 222-23, p. 279-282

6 Ticking Mind - Year of Wonders Study Notes Ticking Mind - Year of Wonders Study Notes

Considering the quotes and passages above, what is your view on the statements below?

· Michael’s actions were heroic, but he is not an admirable character.

· Michael criticises the flagellants, but his own attitude to sin and atonement is basically the same. Elinor Mompellion

Michael Mompellion seems to be a character filled with much pride. He sees fit to admonish the local aristocrat, Henry Bradford, about his actions and to chide Anna on becoming too close with Elinor. While Elinor is also a proud character, she certainly does not see herself as above others. Throughout the course of the novel she develops a strong friendship with Anna, eventually confiding in her the guilt and grief she harbours because of the pregnancy she aborted after she was seduced as a teenager. While strong willed, she clearly defers to Michael. She is a contrast to Anna and a woman clearly defined by her era.

Key Quotes:

· When she discovered that I hungered to learn, she commenced to shovel knowledge my way…p. 36 · The frail body was paired with a sinewy mind, capable of violent enthusiasms…p. 35 · To the world at large, it seemed that I stooped to marry him…But… the sacrifice in the match was all on the side of my dear Michael. p. 155 · Because of her, I had known the warmth of a motherly concern…She never reminded me of my place…she was my friend. P. 234

Key Passages: p. 35-40, p. 70, p. 150-155

· While independent in her thought, in reality Elinor is no more independent than any other wife in Eyam. · Elinor grieves still because of her abortion. Because of her grief and guilt she sees the difficult things she does during the plague as a type of penance.

Aphra & Jos Bont

While Jos Bont is undoubtedly a violent, drunken and lazy man, he has had a horrible childhood. At sea as a teenager he was repeatedly physically and sexually assaulted, bullied, and traumatised by the violence he witnessed. Having escaped a life at sea, he was kidnapped by a ‘press gang,’ a group who forced him to continue to work at sea. Jos’ first wife was Anna’s mother. He mistreated her and she died in childbirth. His second wife is Aphra. Anna suggests that Aphra marries Jos after she is over 26 and has limited options. Several of Aphra’s children

7 Ticking Mind - Year of Wonders Study Notes Ticking Mind - Year of Wonders Study Notes died when still very young and she counsels Anna not to love her children until they are beyond their infant years. It is clear that Aphra practices witchcraft.

Key Quotes:

· She approached Anys with a mixture of fear and awe, and perhaps some envy. P. 39 · I think that in her heart Aphra had never ceased to pine for the kind of power a woman like Anys might wield. P. 40 · My father is a rouging knave, even sober. But with the drink in him he becomes dangerous. P. 133 · Don’t you worry about me, girl. I have my own ways of bridling that mule. P. 198 · I told her then what I had learned of what lay behind his depravities, the same terrible stories he had poured into the unwilling ears of a frightened child. P. 209

Key Passages: p. 39-40, p. 77, p. 132-34, p. 164, p. 190-92, p. 197, p. 204-205, p. 209-10, p. 206, p. 247

· Aphra’s practice of witchcraft is a sad attempt to have independence as a woman. · Despite his childhood, Jos Bont is presented as an entirely unsympathetic character.

The Gowdies:

Anys Gowdie is the orphaned niece of Mem. She comes to live with Mem after her mother dies. Mem is the resident healing woman of Eyam. Because she is a widow, and understands the healing properties of plants, the villagers regard her as a witch. Anys is also regarded as a witch because she chooses to stay single. Women are envious of her because of her independence, beauty and cleverness. In reality, neither Anys of Mem practice witchcraft. However, both cultivate a respect of the knowledge of generations of healing women in the past, and their prayers to these women raises the suspicion that they are witches.

Key Quotes:

· And so I suppose you need to know whether I lay with George…Of course I did. He was too young and handsome. P. 53 · I’m not made to be a man’s chattel. P. 54 · I thought that she could teach me much about how to manage alone as a woman in the world, how to embrace my state and even exalt in it, as she seemed to. P. 73 · As she and her aunt always did when they brought their remedies, she laid her hands gently on Jamie before she gave him the draught and murmured softly, ‘May the seven directions guide this work. May it be pleasing to my grandmothers, the ancient ones.’ P. 84

Key Passages: p. 38,-39, p. 48, p. 51-54, pp. 73-74, pp.90-95

8 Ticking Mind - Year of Wonders Study Notes Ticking Mind - Year of Wonders Study Notes What’s your point of view?

· The Gowdies were too independent to be able to survive in a conservative village like Eyam. · The Gowdies are moden women in a medieval world. Themes and Ideas

Knowledge, ignorance and isolation -

Sam’s world was a dark, damp maze of rakes and scrins thirty feet under the ground…His whole life was confined by these things. P. 26

Like most in this village, I had no occasion to travel father than the market town seven miles distant. P. 25

I…wished to know how things stood in the world. P. 27

When she discovered that I hungered to learn, she commenced to shovel knowledge my way…p. 36

Dear friends here we are, and here we must stay. Let the boundaries of this village become our whole world…p.104

Ignorant wretches! Anys Gowdie fought you with the only weapon she had to hand – your own ugly thoughts and evil doubting of one another! P. 95

It may seem odd that one like me, who grew up in the shadow of such large matters as the execution of one king and the exile and return of another, had stayed so ignorant of her own times. But our village was far from any important road…p.100

Year of Wonders explores many conflicting ideas and values - one key conflict in the novel is that between knowledge and ignorance. The village in which Anna lives is isolated from the rest of the world. Learning, education and curiosity is not a significant part of everyday life. Yet Anna is curious and eager to learn. This sets her at odds with the embedded culture of simply unthinkingly following in the footsteps of the previous generation of workers (such as her dead husband Sam has done), and being content to live a life according to the limitations of the isolated village. Anna is not content to do this. In the dramatic ending of the novel, where she finishes her life in a harem in Oran she has arrived at a point as far away from the insular world of the village as possible.

The status of women –

Before I blamed, I would like to know the extent of her choices in the hard world that you have described to me. P. 28

Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your children will be like olive shoots around your table. P. 19

I knew how easy it was for widow to be turned witch in the common mind…p. 38

9 Ticking Mind - Year of Wonders Study Notes Ticking Mind - Year of Wonders Study Notes I think that in her heart Aphra had never ceased to pine for the kind of power a woman like Anys might wield. P. 40

I think you like to come and go without a man’s say so. P. 54

I’m not made to be a man’s chattel. P. 54

I saw them that afternoon through Anys’s eyes: shackled to their menfolk as surely as the plough- horse to the shares. P. 55

I thought that she could teach me much about how to manage alone as a woman in the world, how to embrace my state and even exalt in it, as she seemed to. P. 73

I breathed deeply and thought instead how thankful I’d been for the touch of women’s hands in my own birthing room. P. 122

I remembered that thatcher’s hook…Anys was beside me…,”that man was a ship’s barber…He knew nothing of women’s bodies. But you do know…” p. 123

Men possess power in the society of Year of Wonders and women don’t. This is a highly traditional culture where women are secondary and “shackled” to men. Anna’s quest for independence as woman, then, brings her into conflict with a culture where it is only men who are independent. Women who have tried to live independently of men have been regarded suspiciously - such as the Gowdies. Throughout nearly all of the characters (Jos, Aphra, Mompellion, The Bradfords) at some point try to force Anna to fulfill a traditional dependent, powerless female role. Her only allies are the Gowdies and Elinor - all of whom end up dead, victims of the independence they had as women.

Grief:

Somehow the telling of all this rinsed my mind clean and left me able to think clearly once more. P. 210

It was as if he commenced on a journey at the moment of Elinor’s death, and every day he moved farther and farther away…p. 264

Attending Mr Mompellion’s grief, at least, gave me a way of managing my own. P. 264

I think grief has undone him. P. 267

I had stood with him that day – afraid to let him out of my sight…but also…afraid to be alone with my own grief. P. 271

Year of Wonders looks at how different characters cope with grief. Anna, Michael, Aphra, the Hadfields and Hancocks (plus other minor characters) all experience profound grief. At different times this grief consumes the characters with fury (Aphra killing Elinor, the mob trying to kill the Gowdies), complete apathy (Jane Martin going from being a puritan to not caring about sleeping with many men), dark, anti-social depression (Mompellion), and drug taking (Anna). Anna seems to be one of the few characters who in the end can deal positively with her grief by “managing” it and coming to see death as an inevitable part of the cycle of nature.

10 Ticking Mind - Year of Wonders Study Notes Ticking Mind - Year of Wonders Study Notes Religion, Faith vs. Nature & Science:

For hundreds of years, the people of this village pushed nature back from its precints. It has taken less than a year to begin to reclaim its place. In the very middle of the street, a walnut shell lies broken, and from it, already, sprouts a sapling that wants to grow up to block our way entire. P. 11

Dark and light…that was how I had been taught to view the world. P. 55

Give me a man who sees and experiences these things for the first time…he is amazed and overwhelmed at these things…p. 70

Perhaps the Plague was neither of God nor the Devil, but simply a thing in Nature…p. 215

For if we could be allowed to see the Plague as thing in Nature merely, we did not have to trouble about some grand celestial design…p. 215

‘On your knees sinner!’ He took a step towards us, a looming black figure. P. 222

She has taken the pure vessel of her body and filled it with corruption. P. 222

It is for Him to decide who shall suffer; He, and the vicars he appoints to give you penances. P. 227

Yet we were, all of us, weary of words. P. 240

At first one of us marked it. Then, when we began to do so, we none of us spoke of it. Superstition, hope, disbelief – all these made pact with our old friend, fear, and prevented us from doing so. P. 253

The more I could make her love me, the more the penance might weigh in the balance equal to her sin. P. 281

As for Jane Martin, had I cared for her…I never would have relented, but punished her…p. 281

We have spoken much since then about faith: the adamantine one by which the doctor measures every moment of his day, and that flimsy, tattered thing that is the remnant of my own belief. P. 301

One of the most important explorations of ideas in the novel is the examination of the conflict between science and religion. A number of people in the village in which the novel are set are profoundly religious - and most of the villagers are religious in some way. Certainly all are expected to attend church on Sunday and all would believe that at some level the plague is an act of God. The longer the plague goes on, the more the villagers turn to religion and superstition to explain the plague and to give them hope. It is only Anna who comes to see that the plague is in its entirety a thing of “nature.” Although Mompellion is interested in a scientific cures to the plague, and at its outbreak writes to his friends at Cambridge for the latest “scientific” remedies, it is only Anna who accepts that the plague cannot be defeated by prayer, or worship, sacrifice or flagellism, but that it is simply part of the natural cycle of life. Therefore the nature of life itself needs to be better understood. It is this that Anna is finally able to investigate when she flees to Oran at the conclusion of the novel.

Techniques, Symbolism and Imagery

11 Ticking Mind - Year of Wonders Study Notes Ticking Mind - Year of Wonders Study Notes Nature & Animal Imagery

Then she took off, swooping down upon a passing wasp. Her legs had seemed flimsy as threads, but they snapped around the wasp like an iron trap. Still in flight, her powerful jaws closed on the insect and devoured it. So it goes, I thought idly. A birth and a death, each unlooked for. P. 68

I said yes, sitting him down in front of me with the ewe’s rear open before us like a big, glistening blossom. P. 66

I see it yet: the pale, folded flesh, the tiny, perfect fingers open like a little flower…p. 120

Viccars lay with his head pushed to one side by a lump the size of a newborn piglet p. 42

All along Jamie kept darting off like a swallow…p. 71

I thought as I lay there in my dull pain, that this how an owl must look to a mouse…p. 94

I learned that he begged in vain for mercy and howled like a trapped animal. P. 204

She gave a great, animal like wail and dropped to the floor. P. 206

…she was wild under our hands as a weasal…p. 206

The cyclical nature of life is emphasized throughout Year of Wonders. One way Brooks does this is through the division of sections of the novel into seasons. The novel begins in Autumn 1666, returns to the Spring of 1665, then back again to Autumn 1666. For Anna, Autumn is a time for apple picking - the harvest that is put aside to survive the harsh winter. Autumn 1666 marks the end of the plague, but the sweet smell of rotting apples can no longer be associated with the nurturing and contented fulfilment of a harvest - it now symbolises the destruction of the plague. Spring of course, is normally associated with birth and the start of life, however it is in spring that the plague first comes to the village. Significantly, the majority of the novel is titled Spring 1665, even though the season of spring makes up only a small part of the section. Though spring brings with it death in this case, it also brings with it a renewal of Anna’s character as she embarks on a journey that ends with her as an opposite person to the woman who fulfilled a traditional gender role at the beginning of the novel. The plague is a thing of nature - it is part of the cycle of nature to which we all belong. Brooks aims to emphasize this through the seasonal structure of the novel but also through the constant animal and natural symbolism, similes and imagery throughout the text.

Shepherd

Brooks also makes use of shepherd imagery throughout the text. A shepherd is someone who takes care of a flock of sheep, keeping them fed and safe. Interestingly, Christian’s often refer to themselves as a flock and their leaders – in particular Jesus – as a shepherd. In Year of Wonders Anna is a shepherd both in literal and symbolic terms. She looks after a small flock of sheep ( see pages p. 66, p. 88, p. 97 p. 216), and on a number of occasions goes out to look for them to bring them back to safety. In these passages her search for the sheep, correlates with groups of people (such as the group who tried to kill Mem Gowdie) ‘straying’ like sheep who need to be lead back to safety. It is this role that Anna tries to fulfil towards the villagers at a number of points throughout the text.

12 Ticking Mind - Year of Wonders Study Notes