The Seven Ages: Analysis of Major Characters
"The Seven Ages: Analysis of Major Characters" explores the lives of several pivotal female characters across different historical contexts, each embodying unique struggles and resilience. The narrative includes a retired midwife who reflects on her solitary life and the wisdom passed down from her grandmother, Granny Martin, a trailblazer in family planning. The character of Sophie, initially a timid heiress, transforms from a victim of her husband’s tyranny into the powerful Matriarch after personal tragedy liberates her from oppression. Lady Lucy, a resourceful woman during the Civil War, confronts hardship as she manages the manor and navigates familial loyalties amidst conflict. Meanwhile, her sister Lady Sarah grapples with the aftermath of war and personal loss, highlighting the emotional toll of such tumultuous times. Alice, a descendant of a skilled healer, faces societal changes and personal struggles as she transitions from a nun to a mother. Finally, Judith and Moriuw represent ancestral wisdom and the complexities of womanhood in their respective eras, with Moriuw's healing abilities often misunderstood as witchcraft. Collectively, these characters illuminate themes of resilience, sacrifice, and the evolution of female identity across generations.
The Seven Ages: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: Eva Figes
First published: 1986
Genre: Novel
Locale: A village in Great Britain
Plot: Social
Time: The 1980's, with flashbacks to earlier periods
The narrator, a midwife retired after a thirty-five-year practice, the mother of Kate and Sally, and the grandmother of Emily and Adam. After years spent dedicated to women in her work as a midwife and in her role as a single mother, the narrator feels newly aware of her solitude. In the quiet darkness of the country, she is visited by memories, by women's voices, and by tales from far history.
Granny Martin, a pioneer in family planning, the grandmother of the narrator. In Granny Martin, the narrator finds precious knowledge, a clever mind, and the example of a woman who has “done things” with her talents. Before the Great War, the young Granny Martin works in a family planning clinic begun by Dora, a granddaughter of the Matriarch. Although the clinic is scorned and attacked by men, it is a valuable resource for women dying piecemeal from undergoing childbirth too often.
Sophie, called The Matriarch, the mistress of the manor house and an astute manager of family businesses. As Sophie, she is a lonely, timid, and delicate heiress who is restrained by her various guardians. Later, as the black-robed Matriarch, she is respected and feared by her household. When Sophie meets a man who laughs at her strict and dour housekeeper, she marries him. Life with the “Master” ruins her health; in the first seven years of marriage, she bears seven children. It is also ruinous to her manor, because the Master sells her meadows and home farm without her knowledge. The semi-invalid Sophie suffers from the local doctor's ignorance, enduring his leeches and bleedings, his Victorian outrage, and his mistaken ideas about the female reproductive system. Freedom and the Matriarch are born together when the doctor and the Master die in a train and carriage collision.
Lady Lucy, a notable descendant of Lady Aethelfrida and mistress of the manor. A capable and resilient woman, Lady Lucy has abilities and family loyalties that prove to be great. During the seventeenth century, Lady Lucy and her sister, Lady Sarah, are caught on opposite sides during the Civil War. Colonel Francis is busy levying troops for Parliament, so Lady Lucy must manage the manor, collect rents, send provisions to her husband, and maintain a constant preparation for siege. Seven months pregnant, she worries about the three younger children trapped with her in the manor house. She miscarries when she learns that her eldest son, Edward, has left the University of Oxford to become a captain of horse. Colonel Francis is purged from the House and imprisoned, later returning to the manor as a ghostly figure.
Lady Sarah, Lady Lucy's sister. Pregnant and penniless, Lady Sarah realizes the folly of a civil war and is shaken by constant, hysterical laughter. Lady Sarah's husband supports the royal cause and flees to France. Her home burned, Lady Sarah takes refuge with her sister.
Alice, a nun and later a mother, a great-great-granddaughter of Judith, and an inheritor of the family's skill in healing. The simple, hardworking, and unlettered Alice labors for the nuns. After the dissolution of nunneries and monasteries under Henry VIII, she is sent home. She marries a priest and bears six children. After the death of King Edward and the coming to power of his sister Mary, Alice's husband is deprived of his benefice for falsely marrying a nun. Under Queen Elizabeth, her husband returns to her, confused and old.
Judith, a midwife and healer in feudal Britain, the granddaughter of Emma-of-the-caul (who was a granddaughter, in turn, of Moriuw). Black-haired and blue-eyed, Judith is as beautiful as Bedda, her wild mother who was drowned for practicing witchcraft. She is the successor in herbal medicine to her grandmother Emma. Fearless of danger, she attempts to defend herself from a series of rapes but in turn gives birth to six children, all of whom die during a pestilence. Half-crazed by grief, she succumbs willingly to the advances of a friar and conceives again.
Moriuw (MOHR-ew), a midwife and healer in pre-Christian Britain. Regarded by many as a witch because of her skill with herbs, Moriuw is under the protection of the Lord Edwin and the Lady Aethelfrida because she oversees the birth of their first living child. Her female descendants learn Moriuw's skills and, like her, show signs of magical abilities: visionary dreams, cauled birth, and healing powers.