Splendors and Glooms

The phoenix-stone (or fire opal), the object around which much of Splendors and Glooms revolves, broadly represents the corruptive influence of power. More specifically, the phoenix-stone symbolizes the greed that power elicits, reflecting the hunger for love that no amount of power can satisfy. Love is gained by offering protection and care and revealing one’s vulnerabilities; the phoenix-stone fosters betrayal and selfishness and enables illusion. Cassandra first finds the phoenix-stone in a trunk of other precious gems her friend inherits from her mother. Taken with the gem because of its shifting colors (primarily red, orange, and yellow) and the sense of power she feels from it, Cassandra steals it from her friend, certain the stone will give her what she wants: love and the attention she craves from her distant father. The theft poisons the friendship, however, and Cassandra comes to believe this friendship was the last time she ever knew love. Her father never shows her the warmth she hopes for.

The phoenix-stone draws on several existing bits of folklore and mythology. The novel indicates that the word “opal” derives from the Sanskrit for “precious stone” and later from the Greek for “to see a change of color.” Opals have a history of association with bad luck and danger, and their shifting colors have caused them to be linked to magic as well. The phoenix-stone of Splendors and Glooms indeed possesses great power, though owning the gem comes at a price: all who have possessed it have died by fire, though the stone itself always escapes its owner’s fate. At first, the stone offers Cassandra power and strength, but as time goes on, it draws from her until she is a shell of her former self. The phoenix, according to Greek tradition, reproduces by setting itself ablaze only to be reborn from the ashes. The phoenix-stone, in addition to the fiery nature of its curse, reflects this element in its ability to heal the owner.

That the stone may only be stolen by a child suggests both its capacity to be overcome by and to corrupt the pure of heart. This duality builds on the theme of The Shades of Gray Between Good and Evil, emphasizing the importance of choice. In the final chapters of the book, the phoenix-stone is destroyed by ice, suggesting how balance undermines its power. When the stone is destroyed, Cassandra is distraught for days. The implication is that the stone acted like a drug on her body. Its power left her forever craving more, even as she recognized that it never gave her anything she wanted.