Josiah Bont Character Analysis

Josiah (or “Joss”) is Anna’s father. He’s drunk and shiftless, often unable to provide for his wife, Aphra, and their many children. He’s also greedy and amoral. He capitalizes on the disorder caused by the plague to take advantage of his neighbors in any way he can, charging exorbitant sums to bury the dead and eventually attempting to bury one man alive in order to seize his household goods. While Anna no longer lives with her father, she is embarrassed by his behavior and often reflects on her unhappy, abusive childhood at his hands, which has shaped her cautious worldview and made her hesitant to trust others. However, eventually Anna concludes that her father abused her because of the traumas he himself suffered as a child conscript in the Navy, and is able to forgive him. Moving past this troubled relationship shows Anna that it’s best to seek justice not through revenge or retribution but through compassion and reason.