Year of Wonders

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2001

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1

Part 2, Chapters 2-5

Part 2, Chapters 6-10

Part 2, Chapters 11-14

Part 3-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Apples

The novel’s opening and closing chapters are titled “Apple-picking Time,” centering the story around the seasonal rhythms of the harvest and presenting apples as one of the novel’s most important symbols.

As the book begins, Anna considers the abundance of apples. Apples are a fall crop that symbolize the end of summer's richness, but the apples are decaying since no one is left to eat them. The rotting smell reminds Anna of loss and death, reflecting the devastation of the plague. Anna also associates the smell of rotting apples with the news of her husband’s death, which occurs before the novel’s action begins. Anna experiences the scent again in George Viccars’ sick room, this time from his putrefying flesh from the plague bacteria. She says, “the smell of rotten apples filled the house. That scent, once beloved, now was so married in my mind with sickrooms that it made me gag” (141). The apples thus stand for the inescapable disintegration and fragility of existence.

Apples have also become synonymous with the Biblical story of man’s Fall from grace when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit—often represented in Western art as an apple—ensuring their mortality. Since the Edenic apple came from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, apples symbolize forbidden knowledge. Although Anna is drawn to plant and herbal cures, she knows these are taboo and unsupported in her community. Similarly, Anys’s sexual exploits and Michael and Anna’s sexual affair also relate to the idea of exploring the forbidden, with Anna becoming bolder in her pursuit of knowledge as the novel progresses. By the novel’s end, Anna’s pursuit of “forbidden fruit” has led not to her damnation, but to her liberation, helping her find her way out of the village and into a new life of greater independence.

Birth

Pregnancy and childbirth in the 17th century were a matter of life and death for women, and Anna’s journey of self-discovery and growth is initially tied to her new role as a midwife. Birth becomes an important motif in the novel, symbolizing hope and new beginnings.

Anna first discusses birth when she extols the virtues of Mem Gowdie’s skills and how she tenderly guided her through the birth of both her sons. After the murder of the Gowdies, Elinor calls on Anna to deliver a baby, and Anna is at first hesitant. Traumatized by watching her mother and baby sister die in childbirth, Anna is still grieving the loss of her sons and uncertain she can help. However, when the birth is a success, it gives Anna the confidence to continue in midwifery. Anna serves the women in her community, sparing them the barbarity of male doctors with no knowledge of female anatomy. The birthing rooms become symbols of female strength and resilience, a celebration of new life amidst the ending of so many others.

Childbirth also symbolizes the cyclical nature of life. Just as Anna helps safely deliver babies from their mother’s wombs, she also midwives Eyam through the tragedy and, through her self-sacrifice, helps the village survive. Each baby Anna delivers is part of a new foundation upon which Eyam will rebuild itself. The last birth Anna attends in Eyam is the most transformative: With the birth of the Bradford baby, Anna’s life is reborn as it becomes her way out of Eyam and away from the painful memories of the past year. She explains the significance of the moment: “[T]his was how I was meant to go on: away from death and toward life, from birth to birth, from seed to blossom, living my life amongst wonders” (286). In her new life in Algeria, Anna continues her midwifery practice, presiding over the sacred celebration of new life.

Anteros

Mr. Mompellion’s powerful stallion, Anteros, appears frequently throughout the narrative as he serves as the rector’s mode of transportation throughout the village. He also symbolizes the rector’s robust control over his followers and, eventually, emblemizes Anna’s burgeoning sense of independence.

Horses are an expensive extravagance that catch the villagers’ attention in Eyam: “When Mr. Mompellion had arrived here on this horse, the common talk had been that such a fine stallion was no fit steed for a priest. And people liked not to hear the rector calling him Anteros after one of the old Puritans told them it was the name of a pagan idol” (5). Having a horse named after the Greek god of unrequited love is an ironic twist: The horse’s name becomes more symbolic once the truth of the Mompellions’ unconsummated marriage comes to light.

Anteros not only physically elevates Mr. Mompellion but also becomes an extension of his power. On horseback, he towers over the people and can move swiftly throughout the village to intervene when necessary. After the mob kills Anys Gowdie, the familiar sounds of Anteros’s hooves slake Anna’s fear as she knows help has arrived. Mompellion atop his mighty steed more resembles a military general going into battle than a humble church leader shepherding his flock.

In his grief over the loss of Elinor, Mompellion abandons Anteros, and the horse chafes at being confined to the stables. Anna sympathizes with the neglected horse and takes him for a ride across the moors. She symbolically celebrates her survival as she takes hold of the horse’s reins: “I turned his head for the moors and we galloped. The wind rushed by, blowing off my cap and freeing my hair so that it blew out like a banner behind me. The big hooves beat the ground as the blood throbbed in my head” (271). Unbinding her hair, Anna and Anteros gallop in freedom across the wide green, past the boundary stone, and into the neighboring village. Riding Anteros symbolizes Anna taking hold of the reins of her life and looking forward to the future. When Anna takes charge of the Bradford infant and resolves to leave Eyam, Mr. Mompellion offers Anteros so she might escape quicker before the Bradfords change their mind. The horse thus becomes her and the baby’s safe transport to a new beginning.