![]() ![]() The novel takes aim at the upper class or nobility (the Bradfords), depicting it as being, with few exceptions (Elinor), undeserving of its privileges and, worse, capable of contemptable behaviour towards the lower classes. Notable among the values promoted by Anna and other female characters is an appreciation of herbal and alternative medicine as a feminine tradition providing great benefit to the community.Īs well as presenting feminist values, the novel has much to say about social class, critically commenting on the inequalities of the class system alongside those inequalities determined by gender due to patriarchy. ![]() She is meant to be regarded as an inspiring role model. ![]() More than this, the text comprehensively promotes feminist values, especially through its treatment of its central character, the strong-willed, independent and resourceful Anna, a working-class woman from a humble, if not deprived background who educates herself and achieves a fulfilling sense of vocation in medicine as a professional healer. The novel is meant to celebrate the triumph of Enlightenment values, like sectarianism and reason, over religious superstition, as well as promote an appreciation of nature over a fascination with the spiritual. Geraldine Brook’s novel Year of Wonders (2001) is more than a romance set in the famous Derbyshire village of Eyam, which is known as the ‘Plague village’ because it quarantined itself from 1665−1666 to contain a local outbreak of the Plague. ![]()
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