Year of Wonders Reader's Response #12

The Press of Their Ghosts
        Anna trips on a rock. She trips on a rock, and that is all it takes for her to think of revolutionary ideas that were way beyond her time. She begins to ponder the work of nature compared to what the people thought was God. She believes that the rock that caused her to trip was not placed there by God, but rather by nature. This causes her to think, "Perhaps the Plague was neither of God nor the Devil, but simply a thing in Nature, as the stone on which we stub a toe" (Brooks, 215). Anna follows the path of the Enlightenment (starting in France in the 18th century), which involved the application of human reason to improve society following the newly attributed data from the Scientific Revolution. Some Enlightenment thinkers followed a scientific philosophy called Dewism, which held that there was a god who created the earth, then left it to operate by natural law. Maybe the most prominent reason why I bring up the Enlightenment era is because I just went over it in my World History AP review book (I have my big exam this week ahhh!!), but I wanted to make the connection that illustrates Anna as a woman that bypasses the level of intelligence present in her community. I mean, she understands that the Plague is contagious and is not a work of God to punish them for their sins. She suggests that if people spend more time to learn "how the Plague spread and poisoned our blood" than "contemplating God, and why He afflicted [them]", then the villagers of Eyam would have a greater chance of surviving. And it wasn't until the 1880's that Louis Pasteur discovered the germ theory of disease. 
        In this chapter, fear is seen affecting people in different ways. Anna finds John Gordon (the man who beat his wife, Urith, at the killing site of the Gowdies) practicing flagellation. John obtained the idea from a historical book in London. Immediately informing Mr. Mompellion, he sets out to stop it because he knows that this self-inflicted pain is a type of zealousness that will spread if not stopped.

The Flagellants were religious zealots of the Middle Ages in Europe who showed their religious fervor and looked for atonement for their sins by vigorously whipping themselves in public displays of penance. Flagellantism  was most popular in times of crisis. Prolonged plague, hunger, drought and other natural maladies would motivate thousands to resort to this extreme method of gaining relief. Despite condemnation of the Catholic Church, the movement gained strength and the highest popularity during the Black Death. 

Jane Martin, who used to be the strict Puritan girl that would take care of Anna's children, lost her entire family to the plague. Because of this, her fear causes her to become a drunkard and she sleeps with men on the street.
        Anna is jealous of Mr. Mompellion and Elinor because the plague hadn't taken them away from each other, while Anna was left without love from a man and no man to give love to.