49 pages • 1 hour read
Gordon KormanThe Hypnotists
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2015A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Eyes
Content Warning: This section of the guide refers to suicide.
Jax's eyes serve as a symbol throughout the novel, representing his connection to his powers, his identity, and his relationships with others. The eyes are a portal into another person’s inner life, offering both their perceptual window out into the world and expressing details about their state of mind to others. Jax’s supernatural eyes allow him to take the metaphor of looking into someone’s eyes to a more literal place, as he looks into and controls others’ minds. When Jax uses his powers, he has a vision of himself, as if seeing himself through the other person’s eyes. This signifies the way he will absorb some of that other person’s perspective as he hypnotizes them. This image parallels Jax’s internal conflict over the nature of his powers and the ethics of using them.
Jax’s eyes also represent a kind of vulnerability. As the colors change, Jax’s emotional state becomes visible, with dark blue representing tumult and purple representing the hypnotic, influential state. This gives others key clues about his feelings. Locating Jax’s power in an inherited trait emphasizes how Jax does not fully control his abilities or his narrative. This gift was something he received from his family that now strongly influences his life.
Eyes also influence his relationship with his best friend, Tommy. Tommy’s colorblindness protects him from Jax’s hypnosis which, ironically, allows Tommy to see Jax more clearly as a person and support him as a friend he can fully trust.
Lusitania
“Lusitania” is the trigger word that Mako implants in Jax’s parents’ minds, inciting them to walk to the nearest train station and die by suicide jumping in front of a train.
This word references a historical ship called the Lusitania, a British ocean liner that a German U-boat sunk in the lead-up to World War I (“The Lusitania Disaster,” Digital Collections: Library of Congress.) “Lusitania” symbolizes the idea of a shipwreck, mirroring the way the word is buried deep in the subconscious minds of Jax’s parents. Invoking the Lusitania incident also conjures images of extensive civilian collateral damage that occurred in the crossfires between major world powers.
Using this historical event, Mako reiterates his willingness to use civilian casualties as part of his manipulation tactic as he pursues his ambition. The Lusitania incident was a public spectacle that contributed to the escalation of World War I and drew new allies into the battle. Mako understands that threatening Jax’s parents is an escalation of his involvement and a means of influencing his opinion through a more indirect form of control. By referencing World War I, Korman emphasizes how Mako sees his pursuits as a kind of righteous war where his opponents will face damage and destruction and he is willing to threaten innocent bystanders to further acquire power.
Cameras
Cameras play an important role in the novel, symbolizing the mass distribution of information and influence on public opinion. Initially, Korman introduces the camera as a technological stand-in for the eyes. The camera has a lens and viewing apparatus, mimicking the human eye but lacking the inner world and humanity that usually emerges during a hypnotic experience. Mako uses the camera to dislocate Jax from his hypnotic subjects, reducing any sense that there is another human on the other side of the hypnosis. This dislocation dehumanizes the subject in just the way that Mako sees as the optimal form of hypnosis, using people as tools and pawns to advance a personal goal. It also allows Mako to avoid experiencing any of the negative ramifications of hypnosis himself, like the emotional blowback. Technology becomes a shortcut for Dr. Mako to improve upon the human eye and increase his efficiency.
The cameras ultimately multiply Jax’s hypnotic reach, using technological mediation to reproduce and distribute the hypnotic suggestion and diminish Jax’s control over his hypnotic power. The hypnotic relationship no longer exists between two people but exists in the hands of a distributor or intermediary like Mako. Cameras can be used in ways that disrespect the autonomy or consent of another person. Mako uses the camera in this way, taking control of Jax’s power.
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