In Skylark, authoritarian power consistently relies on the weaponization of “objective” medical and bureaucratic processes to shore up power structures and vested interests. The novel explores how historical persecution has often been cloaked in clinical diagnoses or administrative procedure, enabling oppressive regimes to present systematic cruelty as rational, necessary, and—even—for the greater good. This theme is key to Skylark’s meaning and purpose as historical literary fiction: In both settings of the 17th-century monarchical Paris and the city during Nazi occupation of 1940-1944, the novel shows how social structures and methodologies like medicine and bureaucracy reflect an era’s ideologies and prejudices, and can also be used cynically by those in power. In Skylark, this manifests particularly as the subjugation of women, the persecution of Jews, and the elimination of the medically vulnerable.

The novel first illustrates this dynamic by showing how medical diagnosis can be used as a weapon of control. In 17th-century Paris, Alouette Voland’s independent creation of a brilliant blue dye is an act of genius that patriarchal Gobelin dyers’ guild cannot acknowledge, as to do so would disrupt their hierarchy and control. Instead of punishing her for producing the dye—an act that would acknowledge her achievement—the guild masters pathologize her autonomy as an “unnatural” act, reflecting historical misogyny around women’s abilities and agency. When the physician Maître Bernard diagnoses her with “hysteria” and “fureur utérine,” (167)—“uterine fury,” an inaccurate historical medical diagnosis which medicalized behaviors considered undesirable in women—Alouette’s transgression of established gender and power roles becomes a priori evidence of “madness,” circular reasoning that protects the vested interests of male authority. Her subsequent sentence to Salpêtrière is therefore punishment masquerading as “correction” and medical treatment, reflecting the rising medicalization of non-conformist female behavior in 17th-century France. The novel details the typical historical “treatment” of women in institutions run and shaped by patriarchal medical practice, which understood little about women’s bodies and was based on theoretical assumptions of inferiority and “otherness.” Monsieur Moreau uses bloodletting and purges to “restore balance” to Alouette, systematically weakening her body in order to “feminize” her behavior toward obedience. The novel creates a parallel to this when, centuries later, in occupied Paris, Dr. Claudel champions electroshock therapy as an efficient tool for managing psychiatric casualties of war, viewing patients as logistical problems rather than suffering individuals. This mindset culminates in the implementation of Aktion T4, a Nazi program that uses clinical terms like “nutritional efficiency protocols” to justify the systematic murder of patients deemed “unworthy of life” (261). In both cases, the novel explores how utilitarian approaches can often reflect—or further—discriminatory practices, leading to the dehumanization of those who fall outside arbitrary norms and standards.

Skylark also demonstrates how bureaucracy can provide the scaffolding of systematic persecution, weaponizing the operations of the state against its citizens. The Nazi occupation of Paris is depicted as a highly organized, incremental oppression, reflecting the expansion of established Nazi ideology across controlled territory. Tracing the real historical process, Skylark shows how the persecution of Jewish citizens in France was steady and incremental, beginning with official ordinances, censuses, and registration requirements that create a legalistic basis for stripping away their rights. This administrative machinery allows collaborators like the French police and Skylark’s fictional concierge Madame Gagnon to participate in persecution under the protection of legal compliance. The novel dramatizes these historical events through the experiences of the Brodsky family, thereby individualizing them and increasing their pathos and moral significance for the reader. When the Brodskys are arrested, Madame Gagnon begins to “inventory” their possessions, claiming, “now they belong to France” (320), but meaning that they will become hers. This same self-serving logic is present in the novel’s 17th-century storyline, where the dyers’ guild operates a rigid bureaucracy to maintain vested control, shown both when René Voland is arrested for allegedly violating guild rules, an act of “treason” against its authority, and when Alouette is tried based on the guild’s laws. In both eras, the novel explores how the ostensibly impersonal nature of bureaucracy masks the personal motives of those in power, allowing individuals to enforce cruelty while deferring moral responsibility to the system itself.

Through this theme, Skylark reveals that the social systems—whether medical or legal—can be effective tools for dehumanization and injustice, reflecting and perpetuating the prejudices of a society at a given time, and furthering the interests and control of those with relative power.