When the first patients, the children of her neighbors, are dying of plague, Anna is so concerned for them that she questions the barber surgeon’s inaccurate diagnosis. Under pressure of the plague, class distinctions break down fairly quickly, and Brooks presents this as an unequivocally positive development.
Thus, the novel creates a fundamentally ambivalent sense of human nature and raises the question of whether it is possible for humans to live together without strong social restrictions. However, it also creates the impression that virtues and principles are a result of social pressure rather than something innate to human character. The Eyam community’s gradual slide into anarchy and disorder helps its characters-especially the astute and adaptable Anna-discover that society doesn’t have to be as rigid and restrictive as it once was. Because of these two factors, the people of Eyam gradually begin to abandon social conventions, both practices that are unnecessarily restrictive and principles that uphold order and civility. The advent of the plague is a catastrophe no one is prepared or qualified to face, and the voluntary quarantine completely separates the village of Eyam from the stabilizing presence of a wider society. Year of Wonders depicts a tiny community that is both isolated and under tremendous pressure.
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