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Josiah Bont
Aphra is Josiah’s wife and Anna’s stepmother. Smarter than her husband, she’s just as amoral as he is, supporting his greedy behavior and refusing to stop him from abusing Anna as a child. She’s very superstitious and mistrusts the local healers, Mem and Anys Gowdie, but she’s also eager to capitalize on the superstitions of others, selling her neighbors fake charms that she claims will protect them from the plague. After the death of her husband and most of her children, Aphra becomes completely deranged. She abandons even the most basic social conventions, dismembering her dead children instead of burying them, and eventually kills Elinor in front of the entire town. Her behavior shows the extent to which a catastrophe can erode personal sanity and community norms.
Aphra Bont Quotes in Year of Wonders
The Year of Wonders quotes below are all either spoken by Aphra Bont or refer to Aphra Bont . 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:
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Part 2: The Body of the Mine Quotes
I did not go, and for that I will forever reproach myself. Because out of our negligence and her loneliness came much rage. Much rage and some madness – and a surfeit of grief.
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The Miners’ Court punishes Joss Bont for theft by impaling his hand to the mine claim owned by his victim. Traditionally, the criminal’s family is supposed to free him before he suffers too much or dies. However, a combination of confusion, bad weather, and new plague cases prevents Aphra and Anna, Joss’s only kin, from rescuing him, and he dies. In this case, institutional justice is carried much too far, resulting in a death which was not intended or merited. In hindsight, Anna understands that such miscarriages of justice have grave consequences, such as the revenge murder that Aphra will Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Moles
I saw that she had fashioned, instead, a figure that looked like a manikin. This she lay atop the cairn. I commenced to say the Lord’s Prayer, and I thought she was saying it with me in a low, deep-throated murmur. But when I said amen, her muttering continued, and the sign she made at the end of it did not resemble the sign of the cross.
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After venturing onto the moors to find Joss’s mangled corpse, Aphra and Anna dig a grave and bury him. In lieu of a formal funeral, they begin to pray over the body. However, while Anna recites the Lord’s Prayer, Aphra is chanting some sort of pagan verse. Moreover, instead of making a cross to place over the grave, she makes a pagan effigy. Before the plague, behavior like this would’ve been considered witchcraft and harshly punished. However, this moment shows how much the community’s old conventions have eroded because of the catastrophe; even important events like death, which used to Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consect
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.
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Anna can’t get Joss’s horrible death out of her mind; she feels it was a miscarriage of justice and that by not thinking to rescue him from the moors, she was complicit in it. Seeing she’s upset, Elinor soothes Anna and coaxes her into telling her both about her own brutal childhood and the traumas her father endured as a child. By evaluating her father’s character more impartially, Anna is able to arrive at an understanding of him that isn’t colored by resentment of his actions or remorse for his death. Thus, Anna is able to achieve a sense of Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque i
Part 2: A Great Burning Quotes
To be sure, our stocks were nothing so fearful as the Bakewell pillory. In that market town, where people came and went without deep ties to another, to be pilloried was to be a target of rotten fruit or fish heads or any noisome thing the mob could lay a hand to. […] Even Reverend Stanley seldom called for sinners to be stocked, and Mr. Mompellion had actively discouraged it.
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When Aphra appears at the town green after her night in the sewer, the villagers are shocked and appalled at her battered condition. Anna reflects that Aphra looks like she’s suffered punishment in the neighboring city of Bakewell. Because inhabitants of larger cities don’t know each other as well, they tend to be crueler in their communal punishments, whereas the close-knit Eyam community tends to be more restrained. Brand and Robert’s harsh treatment of Aphra shows that instead of drawing people closer together, the plague has dissolved community bonds and weakened people’s capacity for empathy. Moreover, this episode shows that Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollit
She plunged and leapt, barking out a nonsense chant that rose in pitch to a piercing cry: “Arataly, rataly, ataly, taly, aly, ly…..” She darted then toward the fire, seizing out the ends of an iron that had lain in the blaze, and placed them on the earthen floor so as to form an X. She prostrated herself four times, in each notch of the figure, and then reached up her arms as if in supplication.
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After Aphra’s ordeal in the sewer, Anna is worried that she won’t be able to take care of her daughter, Faith, and goes to her cottage in the middle of the night to check on her. She finds Aphra chanting nonsense and performing a dance ritual which she has evidently invented to appeal to satanic powers. Aphra’s wholehearted submission to these cultish rituals shows just how appealing superstition is in a time of crisis. Even Anna, who doesn’t believe in witchcraft, is shocked enough to momentarily worry that Aphra really does have supernatural powers. It’s notable that while Aphra’s behavior Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaq
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Aphra Bont Character Timeline in Year of Wonders
The timeline below shows where the character Aphra Bont appears in Year of Wonders. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Part 2: Ring of Roses
...at Mem’s neice, Anys, who also works as a healer; Anna notes that her stepmother, Aphra, relies on Anys to cure her children’s minor ailments but fills the house with charms...
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Part 2: Rat-Fall
...to savor her last hours with her son, holding him and soothing him to sleep. Aphra visits and berates her for expending so much love on a child who, even in...
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Part 2: Venom in the Blood
...the church, with Mompellion and Stanley making their case to individuals. Although some, Josiah and Aphra, reluctantly agree only because it seems they have no other option, eventually everyone acquiesces to...
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Part 2: The Body of the Mine
When Anna runs into Aphra, she attempts to remonstrate with her, but Aphra just says that Josiah is being a...
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...Miner’s Tavern. Anna is worried he will abuse his wife and children and tactfully tells Aphra she can always escape to the Gowdies’ unused cottage, but Aphra laughs at her and...
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...unguarded, so that someone from his family can come to free him. Anna assumes that Aphra will do this for Josiah, so she doesn’t worry about it. It rains all night...
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...in the community. Because the Bonts are so resented and disliked, no one checks on Aphra or worries about Joss’s fate. Anna says ominously that “our negligence” would have consequences not...
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Three days after Josiah’s trial, Aphra arrives at Anna’s cottage, clutching her daughter, Faith, and demanding to know if Anna has...
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...that wild animals have torn him apart, so that he resembles a “clumsily butchered beef.” Aphra cuts off locks of his hair and decides to bury him right there, so that...
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Part 2: The Press of Their Ghosts
...he feared conscription if he fled toward the coast, and Anna says that she thinks Aphra convinced her husband that she had supernatural “chants or charms” to ward off the plague....
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Part 2: A Great Burning
As the villagers watch their possessions burn, Brand and Robert Snee arrive, carrying Aphra, who is dressed and veiled in black. Brand has caught her trying to sell a...
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Mompellion manages to quiet the crowd, and says that they will formally bring charges against Aphra the next morning. He tells Brand and Robert to take charge of Aphra until the...
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In their rage at Aphra’s behavior, Brand and Robert confine her in a particularly cruel manner. Robert stores manure from...
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Elinor and Anna take Aphra back to her cottage and begin the difficult task of cleaning her. As Aphra returns...
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Worried about Faith, Anna returns every day with food and medicine, but Aphra won’t open the door or let her speak to the girl. Eventually, Anna doesn’t even...
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...and desperation to rescue Faith, she goes inside. She sees that Faith is dead and Aphra has hung her body from the ceiling, covering her plague sores with chalk. Anna tells...
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Aphra continues to dance and chant all day, while Mompellion attempts to remonstrate with her and...
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Part 2: Deliverance
Anna avoids Aphra, telling herself there is nothing she can do and feeling as if interaction with her...
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...He and Elinor wear all white and carry flowers. But as Mompellion begins to pray, Aphra runs shrieking into the field, waving the knife that had impaled Josiah and caused his...
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...breaks away from her body and rolls on the grass. Mompellion is startled and releases Aphra, who is roused to new anger. She slashes Elinor’s throat, killing her. Then she plunges...
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Part 3: Apple-Picking Time
The villagers bury Faith at her cottage, next to her brothers. Since no one wants Aphra buried within the village, Anna and Brand dig her a grave next to Josiah on...
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