Year of Wonders

Michael Mompellion is the church's rector in Eyam. He has only recently been installed as the Anglican leader when the plague begins. Mr. Mompellion is a complex and dynamic character, and the apocalyptic events in his town forever alter his life and his relationship with God.

Mr. Mompellion is at first depicted as a strong, compassionate man and leader. He tolerates a range of beliefs within his congregation and treats everyone in the village with respect, no matter their standing. His marriage to Elinor seems strong and loving, and he even supports her interest in plant and herbal medicine. With the outbreak of the plague, he remains passionate about his faith and strives to guide the villagers of Eyam through the cataclysm using his religious conviction. Promising to attend to every deathbed, aid in drawing up wills, and dig every grave, Mompellion appears self-sacrificing and generous. However, with the hasty exit of the town’s ruling family, the Bradfords, Mompellion gains a significant leadership role, which exposes a more controlling aspect of his personality. 

Initially, Mompellion urges the villagers to accept the epidemic as an opportunity to display their love for God and serve their neighbors. Nevertheless, as the death toll rises and Mompellion senses he is losing his grasp on the congregants, he adopts a fatalistic approach, contending that the plague is a punishment from God. His uncompromising stance on seeing the plague through a harsh religious lens only serves to push people further into superstitious practices that he tries—and fails—to discourage. Anna observes the subtle changes in the rector’s physical and emotional state as the plague rages on and his desire for control wears him down. He also reveals his misogynistic tendencies in behaving cruelly to Jane Martin while excusing a man for the same sexual behavior.

Mr. Mompellion makes a series of fatal misjudgments that wreak havoc on the already battered town when he fails to handle Aphra properly after Joss’s death. As Anna emerges from the outbreak stronger and braver, Mompellion is reduced to a husk of a man who abandons his faith and is no longer capable of leading or even carrying out his daily tasks. Towards the novel’s end, Anna discovers that Michael was not the kind husband he appeared to be, either: He refused to have sex with Elinor to punish her for an abortion in her youth. Though she flees Eyam, Anna takes a part of Michael with her as a daughter she conceives during their brief affair. However, she names her Elinor as a reminder of the Mompellion she truly honors and respects, acknowledging that Michael Mompellion’s supposed piety and leadership was, ultimately, a sham.

Mem Gowdie and her niece, Anys, serve as Eyam’s healers and midwives. Mem's knowledge of herbs and natural remedies make her a wise woman in the community. However, her practices arouse suspicion amongst the villagers as people of the time associate the practice of healing with witchcraft.

Mem and Anys’s skills contrast with the heinous practices of male barber surgeons who bleed and butcher patients instead of providing therapy and treatment. The juxtaposition of Mem's herbalism with the conventional approaches to medicine during the plague underscores the lack of scientific knowledge of the time and the villagers' brutal fate without Mem and Anys’s help. Despite her wisdom and track record, Mem’s challenging of traditional gender roles makes her an outsider. Moreover, her niece Anys’s adoption of sexual freedom, which includes refusing to marry and having affairs with the men in the village, further alienates them from the community. When the plague descends on the town, the villagers not only refuse Mem’s help, they make her and Anys scapegoats for the scourge and murder them.

Though intrigued by Mem and Anys’s work and secretly enamored with Anys’s progressive worldview, Anna resists following in their footsteps, fearful that she will receive the same fate. However, through Elinor’s encouragement, Anna steps into her destiny and becomes a midwife and healer, drawing strength from her deceased mentors. Anna and Elinor use the Gowdies’ empty cottage as a library, laboratory, and mission control center to draw on the Gowdies’ knowledge and supplies to help their community during the epidemic, transforming Mem and Anys into symbols of progress and female empowerment.

Elinor Mompellion is Michael's wife and humbly serves by his side. Elinor is a well-educated, wealthy woman of stature, yet is just as even-handed as her husband in her dealings with those of a lower social class. Anna and the villagers see Elinor as the apotheosis of femininity, while Anna regards Elinor’s marriage with Mompellion as an ideal loving partnership.

However, as Anna works in the rectory, she sees a different side of Elinor as a woman of intellectual depth and curiosity, uncommon for her time. Elinor takes Anna under her wing, becoming her mentor by teaching her to read and sharing her interest in plant and herbal medicine. Elinor's intellectual pursuits provide a counterbalance to Michael’s religious fervor: She still participates in spiritual practices but doesn't mix religion with science. Elinor also reveals her past to Anna: She was once seduced and abandoned by a lover who left her pregnant and sustained permanent injuries after performing an abortion on herself, leaving her unable to have children. Elinor is a driving force behind Anna’s character development as she spurs her protégé on to question and explore.

The plague epidemic forges a deep friendship between Anna and Elinor as they work ceaselessly to attend to the sick while conducting scientific research to lessen the impact of the disease. They serve as foils to their male counterparts, who do little to help their community other than sow seeds of discontent and harm. They emerge as heroes when they climb into the depths of a mine to save one little girl’s livelihood and family honor. When Elinor falls ill, Anna fears losing her friend and remains loyally by her side. Ultimately, however, Elinor falls victim to the same rageful ignorance that killed the Gowdies when Aphra murders her in a senseless act of violence. Anna honors the memory of her friend by naming her daughter after her.