'The Soldier's Return' and 'The Year of Wonders'
... settle back in to a town where “what was familiar suddenly flipp[ed] over into what seemed new”, his seemingly deteriorating relationship with his wife, Ellen, and son, Joe, and attempting to deal with his horrific memories of the war. As we are made to see the raw human side of Sam, the responder feels pity for him and his ordeals. From this empathy stems a greater understanding of the plight of many soldiers, not just in battle, but the after-effects as well. Like-wise, in “The Year of Wonders”, Anna Frith is a character who, through her actions of kindness and understanding, is instantly likeable. So, when she too experiences immense suffering, the reader once more feels great pity for the central character. Anna, like thousands of others of her time, loses loved ones to the Plague. She is a clear representation of the pain and loss felt by many, during the epidemic in the mid 1660s. This is a similarity to Sam, who also signifies hardship, though in his case, it is of the thousands of soldiers who fought during World War Two. However, unlike Sam, Anna is a character that is quite ahead of her time. For example, a journey to the Middle East would have been extremely unusual for a woman of her socio-historic context. Brooks molded Anna into a fairly anachronistic figure, so that she questions her society, representing more contemporary values. Therefore, a responder with modern sensibilities is able to connect with Anna and more effectively feel empathy for her. The creation main characters that readers can easily relate to or, at least, empathise with, makes it easy for the authors to convey themes of grief and crisis. Though there are centuries which set them apart, the stories of “The Soldier’s Return” and “The Year of Wonders” both deal with grief and misery felt by humans, which, as a universal theme, the responder can relate to. In the “Year of Wonders” the grief felt by not only Anna, but the whole town of Eyam, is obvious. One by one, villagers fall victim to the Plague until it kills two thirds of the population of their town. Grief overwhelms Anna as the virus cuts down her friends and family. Grief is a theme that transcends time, culture and place – all the things that separate a modern responder from the characters in “The Year of Wonders”. Because of this, a contemporary audience can witness the misery felt by those who suffered in situations similar to Anna’s. Through Brooks’ portrayal of Anna’s despair, the reader gains an understanding of the sorrow of those in Plague times. Melvyn Bragg also deals with grief, though perhaps that felt by Sam does not seem as intense, on first inspection. Instead, it stabs away at him as he tries to cope with being back home. This feeling culminates in a “need to go to Australia”, to escape and start a new life properly. The grief that continues to trap Sam shows the reader that return from war could be just as traumatic as battle itself. The grief displayed in these two novels stem from the great crisis that the characters experience in both books. Crisis is the theme that provides much of the drama in both “The Year of Wonders” and “The Soldier’s Return” and is easy to relate to by a contemporary audience. “The Soldier’s Return” is based around the aftermath of World War Two, one of modern history’s major conflicts. The story of demonstrates what an ordinary man went through after being caught up in a crisis of such magnitude. This crisis acts as a launch pad for almost all the conflict in the story. While “The Year of Wonders” similarly deals with major crisis, there are some fundamental differences between the two events written about. In “The Year of Wonders”, the main crisis, the outbreak of the Plague, was believed to be brought on as a punishment from God, which raised some questioning on Anna and the reader’s behalf about the blind faith of most of the citizens of Eyam. On the other hand, in “The Soldier’s Return”, the horrors of the war are caused by man to ma...