Year of Wonders

by

Geraldine Brooks

Elinor Mompellion Character Analysis

The young and beautiful wife of Michael Mompellion, Elinor is Anna'a employer, her comrade in fighting the plague, and by the end of the novel her confidante and friend. Elinor acts as a big sister to the lonely Anna, teaching her to read, encouraging her to develop her powers of scientific reasoning, and helping her come to understand the events of her troubled past, such as her mother’s death and her father’s violence. In turn, Anna loves Elinor and regards her as a paragon of goodness. In fact, because of her physical fragility and generous attitude towards others, the whole town sees Elinor as the embodiment of innocence and purity, but it turns out she has a more complicated past. As a teenager she had a premarital affair and illegitimate pregnancy which she ended with a self-induced abortion, leaving her unable to bear children. Because of this, she considers herself forever marked by sin. While Michael Mompellion marries her, and seems to lover her, he also punishes Elinor for that sign throughout the entirety of their marriage. Ultimately, the deranged Aphra Bont kills Elinor in an act of senseless violence, but Elinor lives on through Anna’s daughter, whom Anna names after Elinor.

Elinor Mompellion Quotes in Year of Wonders

The Year of Wonders quotes below are all either spoken by Elinor Mompellion or refer to Elinor Mompellion. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Community and Convention Theme Icon
).
Part 2: Ring of Roses Quotes

There was something in her that could not, or would not, see the distinctions that the world wished to make between weak and strong, between women and men, laborer and lord

Related Characters: Anna Frith (speaker), Elinor Mompellion
Page Number: 35
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2: Sign of a Witch Quotes

“The man who sent it is a well-esteemed physician, and he says it is a remedy much thought of among the Florentine doctors…”

“But what is it?” I asked again.

“It contains a dried toad,” she said. I wept then, even though I knew her intentions were all of the best.

Related Characters: Anna Frith (speaker), Elinor Mompellion (speaker)
Page Number: 84
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2: Wide Green Prison Quotes

That man was a ship’s barber; he pulled teeth and amputated limbs. He knew nothing of women’s bodies. But you do know. You can do this, Anna. Use your mother-hands.

Related Characters: Elinor Mompellion (speaker), Anna Frith
Related Symbols: Childbirth
Page Number: 121
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2: The Press of Their Ghosts Quotes

By gathering and sorting my own feelings so, I was finally able to fashion a scale on which I could weigh my father’s nature and find a balance between my disgust for him and an understanding of him; my guilt in the matter of his death against the debt he owed me for the manner of my life.

Related Characters: Anna Frith (speaker), Elinor Mompellion, Josiah Bont , Aphra Bont
Page Number: 210
Explanation and Analysis:

I was jealous of them both at once. Of him, because Elinor loved him, and I hungered for a greater share of her love than I could ever hope for. And yet I was jealous of her, too; jealous that she was loved by a man as a woman is meant to be loved.

Related Characters: Anna Frith (speaker), Elinor Mompellion, Michael Mompellion
Page Number: 229
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2: A Great Burning Quotes

To me, she had become so many things. So many things a servant has no right or reason to imagine that the person they serve will be. Because of her, I had known the warmth of a motherly concern – the concern that my own mother had not lived to show me. Because of her, I had a teacher and was not ignorant and unlettered still.

Related Characters: Anna Frith (speaker), Elinor Mompellion
Related Symbols: Childbirth
Page Number: 233
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3: Apple-Picking Time Quotes

In lying with him, I had sought to bring her closer to me. I had tried to become her, in every way that I could. Instead, in taking my pleasure from his body, I had stolen from her – stolen what should have been hers, her wedding night.

Related Characters: Anna Frith (speaker), Elinor Mompellion, Michael Mompellion
Page Number: 281
Explanation and Analysis:
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Year of Wonders PDF

Elinor Mompellion Quotes in Year of Wonders

The Year of Wonders quotes below are all either spoken by Elinor Mompellion or refer to Elinor Mompellion. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Community and Convention Theme Icon
).
Part 2: Ring of Roses Quotes

There was something in her that could not, or would not, see the distinctions that the world wished to make between weak and strong, between women and men, laborer and lord

Related Characters: Anna Frith (speaker), Elinor Mompellion
Page Number: 35
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2: Sign of a Witch Quotes

“The man who sent it is a well-esteemed physician, and he says it is a remedy much thought of among the Florentine doctors…”

“But what is it?” I asked again.

“It contains a dried toad,” she said. I wept then, even though I knew her intentions were all of the best.

Related Characters: Anna Frith (speaker), Elinor Mompellion (speaker)
Page Number: 84
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2: Wide Green Prison Quotes

That man was a ship’s barber; he pulled teeth and amputated limbs. He knew nothing of women’s bodies. But you do know. You can do this, Anna. Use your mother-hands.

Related Characters: Elinor Mompellion (speaker), Anna Frith
Related Symbols: Childbirth
Page Number: 121
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2: The Press of Their Ghosts Quotes

By gathering and sorting my own feelings so, I was finally able to fashion a scale on which I could weigh my father’s nature and find a balance between my disgust for him and an understanding of him; my guilt in the matter of his death against the debt he owed me for the manner of my life.

Related Characters: Anna Frith (speaker), Elinor Mompellion, Josiah Bont , Aphra Bont
Page Number: 210
Explanation and Analysis:

I was jealous of them both at once. Of him, because Elinor loved him, and I hungered for a greater share of her love than I could ever hope for. And yet I was jealous of her, too; jealous that she was loved by a man as a woman is meant to be loved.

Related Characters: Anna Frith (speaker), Elinor Mompellion, Michael Mompellion
Page Number: 229
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2: A Great Burning Quotes

To me, she had become so many things. So many things a servant has no right or reason to imagine that the person they serve will be. Because of her, I had known the warmth of a motherly concern – the concern that my own mother had not lived to show me. Because of her, I had a teacher and was not ignorant and unlettered still.

Related Characters: Anna Frith (speaker), Elinor Mompellion
Related Symbols: Childbirth
Page Number: 233
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3: Apple-Picking Time Quotes

In lying with him, I had sought to bring her closer to me. I had tried to become her, in every way that I could. Instead, in taking my pleasure from his body, I had stolen from her – stolen what should have been hers, her wedding night.

Related Characters: Anna Frith (speaker), Elinor Mompellion, Michael Mompellion
Page Number: 281
Explanation and Analysis: