51 pages • 1-hour read
Hemlock & Silver
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Symbols & Motifs
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of graphic violence and death.
Mirrors
The mirror is the novel’s central symbol, a portal into a parallel reality that interrogates The Unstable Nature of Identity. The mirror-world is defined by what it lacks, a persistent “grayness” that represents its cold, lifeless nature in contrast to the warmth and color of the real world. The world on the other side is also incomplete, existing in full detail only where it is reflected. Nevertheless, the mirror-world is a tangible, albeit derivative, place. Objects in it shift when their real-world counterparts are moved, but not immediately, and the mirror-gelds’ tunnels demonstrate that its landscape can be altered in ways independent of reality. Moreover, the existence of “waking” reflections, who possess independent consciousness and desire, suggests that a copy can be as real as the original. The mirrors thus symbolize the precariousness of selfhood, suggesting that identity is not a fixed, internal quality but something that can be coveted, copied, and usurped.
The mirror’s function in the original fairy tale is instructive in this respect. In “Snow White,” it embodies the stepmother’s vanity—her obsessive need to be “the fairest.” Hemlock & Silver splits this symbolism across two characters, the “real” queen and the Mirror Queen, to explore how desire drives identity formation. It is the real queen who spends hours in front of her mirror, but she does so not because she is vain but because she is lonely and lacks a firm sense of self outside the social role her parents have prescribed for her. Her desperate need gives rise to the villainous Mirror Queen, figuratively suggesting how thwarted desire twists the self. The Mirror Queen then takes on the stepmother role (e.g., poisoning Snow) in her quest to achieve an independent selfhood, reinforcing this idea.
Poison and Antidotes
The motif of poison and antidotes establishes the novel’s core philosophical conflict and Anja’s role as an agent of empirical truth. The narrative opens with Anja’s unorthodox methodology: “I had just taken poison when the king arrived” (1). This immediate introduction to her practice of self-testing demonstrates her commitment to firsthand, observable evidence over the received wisdom of classical authorities like Harkelion, whom she learns to question. This scientific worldview is the primary lens through which she interprets the world, making her the perfect protagonist to investigate a mystery that seems to defy rational explanation.
This motif is thus central to the theme of Questioning Scientific Authority and the Pursuit of Truth. The apple functions as the ultimate test of Anja’s philosophy, a “poison” that is also a key to the seemingly magical mirror-world. In confronting it, Anja does not abandon her scientific principles but expands them, applying her observational skills to a new reality. The motif thus tracks her journey from a scholar of toxins to an explorer of a new dimension, suggesting that the pursuit of truth requires not only skepticism toward old authorities but also a willingness to modify one’s own views in the face of the unknown.
In addition, the motif reflects the novel’s interest in The Ambiguity of Morality Beyond Fairy-Tale Binaries. Poisons and antidotes are themselves commonly understood as opposites, yet with Anja’s chime-adder distillation, the novel immediately establishes that one toxin can sometimes counteract another. On the flip side, the mirror-apple is not truly poisonous; it is a neutral substance that can become deadly in certain conditions (i.e., when combined with food from the “real world”). This blurring of boundaries between poison and cure supports the novel’s broader framing of good and evil as contextual.
Hearts
The heart functions as a symbol of life, authenticity, and the essential quality of “realness” that separates the living from their reflections. For the inhabitants of the cold, gray mirror-world, obtaining a heart is the ultimate goal, as it is the only way for a reflection to permanently cross over and replace its real-world counterpart. The desire is not merely for a physical organ but for the very essence of existence—the warmth and vitality that reflections intrinsically lack. The heart symbolizes the prize in an existential struggle between the original and the copy.
Anja’s description of the Mirror Queen’s plan as “[making] horrible fairy-tale sense” is in part a metatextual nod to “Snow White” (291), some versions of which have the stepmother demanding Snow White’s heart. However, it also speaks to the novel’s interest in the “logic” of fairy tales as a counterpart to scientific reasoning. Anja cannot explain why consuming the real queen’s heart would allow the Mirror Queen to take her place, but she recognizes the “sense” of it. In this context, hearts also symbolize the figurative, emotional truths of myth and legend, positioning storytelling as a valid form of knowledge.
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