Hemlock & Silver

The novel’s opening chapters establish the theme of Questioning Scientific Authority and the Pursuit of Truth, positioning Anja’s scientific methodology against both classical tradition and court politics. The flashback in Chapter 2 is central to this development, framing Anja’s vocation as a response to the failure of existing knowledge. Her tutor, Scand, becomes the voice of this emergent scientific philosophy when he challenges the infallibility of ancient scholars, asking, “What if he was wrong?” (22). This question frames the pursuit of knowledge as demanding active, critical inquiry.

At the same time, the novel is attuned to the fact that an apparently objective scientific consensus can be incorrect or even biased. Anja’s rigorous empiricism directly contrasts with the established medical practices of the royal court, which are shown to be ineffective, but those practices (bloodletting, blistering, etc.) reflect the real-world history of medicine. Conversely, the kind of herbalism Anja practices, however rigorously studied, was historically consigned to the realm of superstition, if not witchcraft, in part because of its association with women. Anja thus straddles two worlds, even as she consciously favors empiricism. There are hints that resolving the novel’s central conflict will require a reconciliation of the two. For instance, Chapter 2 recounts Anja’s frustrating attempt to decode a “mirror image” conceptualization of antidotes; the immediate implication is that such approaches are nonsensical, but given the novel’s debt to “Snow White”—a story about mirrors—the passage opens up metaphorical possibilities for the pursuit of truth.

A blend of scholarly precision and social anxiety characterizes Anja’s voice, creating a narrator who is intellectually authoritative yet personally vulnerable. In part, this tension reflects Anja’s liminal position as the unmarried daughter of a merchant. Her expertise grants her access to the king, yet her social standing—wealthy, but not aristocratic—makes her vulnerable to the judgments of the court, as seen in Isobel’s attempts to secure her appropriate clothing. Her gender (in particular, her gender nonconformity) is a further complicating factor: The courtiers’ assumption that she is the king’s mistress reveals a worldview where a woman’s proximity to power can only be interpreted through a sexual or marital lens, not the professional one that Anja has carved out for herself. Meanwhile, her failed attempt to save the man who has overdosed on lotus-smoke highlights her connection to the common people, creating a tension between her calling as a healer and her new, exclusive role as a servant to the crown.

The narrative structure also serves to immerse the reader in her empirical worldview, making the eventual intrusion of the supernatural more destabilizing. Anja’s internal monologues are filled with detailed toxicological knowledge, such as her classification of poisonous plants or the specific effects of lotus smoke, which grounds the narrative in a tangible, scientific reality. This choice of a rational, skeptical narrator ensures that when inexplicable phenomena arise, they are filtered through a lens of disbelief, inviting the reader to share Anja’s struggle to reconcile her scientific understanding with a reality that defies it. The early introduction of mirrors as objects that make her “a bit uneasy” is a key piece of foreshadowing (88), establishing a crack in her rational worldview long before she understands its significance. That the novel is an adaptation of a fairy tale adds an element of dramatic irony to the tension between what Anja knows and what she is about to discover, as readers have more cause than Anja to suspect that magic will at some point intervene.

These chapters also initiate a deconstruction of fairy-tale archetypes, signaling an engagement with The Ambiguity of Morality Beyond Fairy-Tale Binaries. The narrative opens with King Randolph’s confession, immediately subverting the image of a noble monarch. However, his justification—that his wife “was cutting [their] daughter’s heart out” (4)—just as quickly recasts his act of murder as one of desperate, tragic protection. This complication of the king’s role sets a precedent for the novel’s treatment of its characters, who consistently defy simple categorization. Lady Sorrel, who in a traditional narrative might be a conniving courtier, instead proves to be a kind, intelligent woman. Similarly, Princess Snow is not presented as a purely innocent, passive victim. Her forthrightness about the reason for Anja’s presence and the “sly, secretive smile” Anja observes in the mirror hint at a hidden knowledge and agency that complicate the damsel-in-distress trope (94). By dismantling these familiar roles from the outset, the narrative primes the reader to look beyond surface appearances and question simplistic moral frameworks.

This subversion of tropes is reinforced through the early development of symbols and motifs that challenge conventional notions of morality, reality, and identity. The motif of poison and antidotes supports both the novel’s ethical and epistemological concerns. Anja’s construction of an antidote from chime-adder venom suggests that substances, like actions, are not inherently “good” or “bad”: What matters is how they are used. Poison also represents hidden, corrupting truths—the court’s secrets and lies, Snow’s illness, the queen’s actions—while the search for an antidote represents Anja’s scientific quest for clarity. Meanwhile, Anja’s unease with mirrors and Snow’s clandestine communication with her reflection foreshadow the mirror’s role as a portal to an alternate reality and a symbol of The Unstable Nature of Identity.