Bla Year of Wonders

Hello Ladies and Gentlemen, today we are going to talk about Michael Mompellion specifically how he becomes a symbol for the villager's loss. Well let's first talk about Michael himself. From the novel Year of Wonders by Geraldine brookes we learn that Michael Mompellion came from Cambridge a highly regarded education and grew up sinless and after working so hard throughout his lfe he married Elinor and quit the church, but also a man who has a obsessive belief in God and faith, and becomes the rector of the Anglican Society. From the strike of the plague, when the towns people are in doubt whether to flee or not, Michael takes charge what he brings to the town is belief and leadership. ‘…here we are, and here we must stay…Let none enter and none leave while the plague last.   He questions Colonel Bradford about his actions and thus he starts to unravel his religious dominance of his life:   Read passage pg61. Michael brings signs of hope and unity among the village and promising that the plague is a trial of the town’s faith and that they must face it in order to survive the plague. When the gowdies are helping out with the town, chaos erupts as people start accusing Anys of consulting with the devil. Pg 95. Once again shows his obsessive religious need to bring God into everything. Michael is also a man who can interact well with the poorer families of Eyam growing up poor but taken in by Elinor’s father.   He continues to strengthen his belief that this is all just a test pg 102. By constantly reinforcing this idea he can try and restore the faith into the villagers but also himself.

He is the first to place his own belongings on the burning pile so that the villagers will follow suit. As the dire consequences of his decision become more apparent, Mompellion takes it upon himself to attend to every dying member of the community. He spends hours with the suffering ‘fighting first for the body and then, when that cause was clearly lost, for his soul.’ He holds...