Arising from this overview is the tension between the descent into superstition, anarchic behaviour and despair on one hand, and on the other the practice of an incipient scientific method, a groping through darkness towards verifiable knowledge. It suggests an understanding (as distinct from a belief) that nature, rather than the supernatural, is the key to unlocking the world's mysteries and causes of disease and death.

These themes and events are channelled through the first-person narrator and central protagonist, Anna Frith, a young, initially ignorant, uneducated and meek widow in the service of the Mompellions – Michael, the local rector, and his wife Elinor. As a serving maid she knows, and does not question, her lowly place in the social order. Due to the time-sequence structure of Year of Wonders, in which the opening section of the novel takes place shortly after the plague has abated, Anna's character and nature is encapsulated in a visionary "before and after" scene, involving the rector's refusal to attend to the demands of the arrogant daughter of the manor:

"It was as if there were two of me, walking down those stairs. One of them was the timid girl who had worked for the Bradfords in a state of dread … The other was Anna Frith, a woman who had faced more terrors than many warriors. Elizabeth Bradford was a coward … As I entered the parlour and faced her thunderous countenance, I knew I had nothing more to fear from her."

Here, that unquestioning feudal sense of "knowing your place" within the orbit of someone else's egocentric world of superior wealth, status and class has been juxtaposed with an awakening of true personal identity and self-worth. There is a sense of democratisation, a shift in the balance of power and knowledge – echoing and reinforcing Anna's spirit of inquiry into the curative qualities of plants and herbs – ironically regarded as "witchery" by the ignorant and superstitious.

At one level the language of Anna's narration and self-awareness may seem an unacceptable literary conceit, coming as it does from a young, semi-literate, mid-17th-century village house maid. Yet, as we see in her intuitive relationship to Elinor, these characteristics arise from within the world of the text and the setting, rather than being imposed by a modern "feminist" author. They arise by nature from Anna's inquiring mind, sponge-like, receptive to learning and to education in the fullest sense, as a sought-for experience: "It was just such a reputation [as a self-taught reader from childhood] that led to my recommendation for employment at the rectory, and thus opened the door to the real learning that I craved."

An element of this "real learning" is the influence on Anna of the free-thinking Anys, whose exotic knowledge of the secret medicinal life of plants dovetails with Elinor's quiet wisdom and more formal and cultured, bookish education: Anys "was a rare creature … and I had to own that I admired her for listening to her own heart rather than having her life ruled by others' conventions."

It is interesting to note later in this same sequence, that in conveying Anna's bitter cause-and-effect thoughts about the oppressed lives of the farming women of her community, Brooks typically uses the narrator's localised experience and language in order to construct meaning and metaphor: "I saw them that afternoon through Anys' eyes: shackled to their menfolk as surely as the plough-horse to the shares."

The tragedy and threat derived from this is that unconventional life choices in a conservative community attract negative attention. In different ways, through a combination of dictatorial and uncompromising religious principles held by Michael Mompellion, and murderous behaviour by superstitious villagers, both Elinor and Anys later suffer the loss of their lives. Yet prior to these events the intellectual, spiritual and emotional seeds have been sown by both women, and Anna begins, dangerously, to entertain blasphemous thoughts, thoughts that evoke images of freedom, and an escape, in a much wider sense, from accepted custom:

"Perhaps the Plague was neither of God nor the Devil, but simply a thing in Nature … We could simply work upon it … knowing that when we found the tools and the method and the resolve, we would free ourselves …"

The image of freedom, independence and escape from the past, from death and from convention is realised in a sequence of symbolic potency shortly after the plague fades away, when Anna, with no permission, takes charge of Mompellion's great stallion, Anteros: "The wind rushed by, blowing off my cap and freeing my hair so that it blew out like a banner … We live, we live, we live, said the hoofbeats, and the drumming of my pulse answered them. I was alive, and I was young, and I would go on until I found some reason for it."

The contrast drawn between Anna and Mompellion, whose religious faith has shattered into regret and cynicism, is stark. Whereas Mompellion has withdrawn into the darkness of rectory, mind and spirit, and has similarly condemned Anteros to a dingy stable, Anna has released the animal (whose name recalls that of the Greek god of requited love) into the light of day.

This scene presages an event where, in dramatic circumstances, Anna saves the life of a newborn, illegitimate Bradford. The sense of light, love and new life surrounding Anna inevitably removes her to a new level of existence: "To have saved this small, singular one – this alone seemed reason enough that I lived. I knew then that this was how I was meant to go on: away from death and towards life, from birth to birth, from seed to blossom, living my life amongst wonders."

By accident and yet by design and purpose Anna and baby arrive at "the port of Oran, home of the Andalus Arabs". Again, as metaphor for finding her way, her true path, it is a place suffused with light, "and suddenly it seemed to me that I had been brought to this sunlit city so that I might learn more of the craft that had become my vocation".

Ironically, in a civilisation where women must walk in public veiled, Anna finds her freedom: "I cannot say that I have faith any more. Hope perhaps."

Further reading:

Geraldine Brooks's recent novel, Caleb's Crossing (2011), is also set in 1665, and similarly narrated by a young woman, a housemaid, although here the story takes place in the colonial settlements of America.

Perhaps as an author's homage, the northern African city of Oran is also the setting for the modern classic work of literature about the black death: The Plague, by Albert Camus (1947).

Some editions of Year of Wonders include an insightful Q and A interview with the author, plus a list of topics for further discussion. The Q and A is also online (see websites below).

Websites:

Geraldine Brooks biography and career:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geraldine-Brooks-(writer)

Geraldine Brooks official website:

http://www.geraldinebrooks.com/

The real Derby plague of 1665 (with link to the village of Eyam):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derby-plague-of-1665

Roger Stitson is a former secondary teacher, a freelance writer, and developer of online material at http://www.rmsed.com.au.