57 pages • 1 hour read
Alex MichaelidesThe Maidens
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2021A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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BetaSymbols & Motifs
Swans
In Greek mythology, swans were a sacred animal of both Aphrodite, goddess of love, and Apollo, god of prophecy. Swans also symbolize beauty and gracefulness in the Western popular imagination and are sometimes depicted as singing laments for the dead. In The Maidens, swans appear at several pivotal moments in the narrative: when Mariana believes she is falling in love, when she is in danger, and when she evades that danger. Swans are part of the romantic scene Mariana constructs of punting down the river when she first fell in love with Sebastian. Significantly, at the end of the novel, Mariana will punt down the river with Zoe to confront the painful truth about her husband and niece. In the middle of the narrative, she and Zoe meet at the river’s edge to discuss the murder case, and Mariana imagines that a swan makes eye contact with her: “[I]t was an impressive creature—ragged but serene, and highly imperious. It turned its long neck, and looked in Mariana’s direction. […] was it staring directly at her?” (130). In the final chapter of Part 6, after Zoe is taken away, Mariana watches a swan “spread its wings” and fly away “into the heavens” (350). The presence of a swan at these moments evokes both Aphrodite and Apollo, as Mariana experiences the swans as at once romantic and prophetic.
Stained-glass Window
Early in the novel, Mariana goes to Zoe’s campus residence and looks up at her through a stained-glass window: “[T]he small panes broke up Zoe’s image, fracturing it into a jigsaw of diamond shapes” (55). Mariana then imagines reconstructing the individual panes into a different picture: Zoe as a child of six, vulnerable and sweet. The window represents the way breaking up a whole picture strips it of its coherence.
The effect of the stained-glass window on Mariana’s view of Zoe enacts a miniature version of the novel’s overall construction. Michaelides’s short, enjambed chapters break up scenes into moments, making it difficult for readers to retain continuity and grasp the whole picture coherently. The short chapters jar and dislocate the reader, replicating Mariana’s emotional state.
Time
The heroes of ancient Greek mythology arguably exist above or outside of time, both in the sense of being timeless and in the details of their portrayal. In the Iliad, for example, Achilles stalls his return to the battlefield, declaring that he will only return if the Trojans threaten his ships. His decision leads his beloved companion, Patroclus, to dress in his armor and take Achilles’s place in battle, where he is killed. In waiting for the perfect moment, Achilles loses Patroclus, which prefigures his own death. In addition, the Iliad stretches time by using extended analogies that elongate significant moments, freezing them in a spotlight for the length of the analogy. Though narrative can stop time momentarily, its effects eventually materialize.
Time functions as a motif in The Maidens in similar ways. Mariana does not lose her own life, but her delay facing the truth about Sebastian, Zoe, and herself allows Zoe to put Sebastian’s plan into effect, kill three women, and almost kill Mariana and Fred. References to moments and places being frozen in time also occur throughout the narrative. For example, when Morris brings Mariana’s bags into her room, he remarks that “St Christopher’s is one place where time stands still” (87), though descriptions of the school’s aging walls and decaying statues play counterpoint. When Zoe informs Mariana that Edward did not write the letter she found in Zoe’s stuffed zebra, “The sun suddenly [goes] behind a cloud, and time seem[s] to slow to a crawl” (338). Mariana experiences heightened awareness of the world around her: She “[can] hear the first drops of rain, tapping at the stone windowsill in the folly, and an owl screeching somewhere in the distance” (338). Though not a simile, this elongation of time functions similarly to the analogies in Homer, casting a spotlight on the moment of revelation.
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By Alex Michaelides
