53 pages • 1-hour read
Starling House
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Symbols & Motifs
Starling House
Starling House is the most complex symbol in the novel, for it means different things to each of the people that surround and inhabit it. To the citizens of Eden, it is a representation of otherness. Located far from the road on what is considered to be “Starling land” rather than “Gravely land,” Starling House remains largely invisible most of Eden’s inhabitants, none of whom have been inside its gates or to its door. The legends and rumors associated with the house lead the people of Eden to believe it to be a place of evil. Overwhelmed by the sense of the unknown that surrounds the secluded house, the townspeople know only that approaching it too closely is dangerous. However, when Opal asks why she should not go to the house, no one can give her a fact-based reason; instead, they can only offer rumors, legends, and their own speculations about the one place in town that is beyond their reach.
Yet hidden beneath the house’s widespread reputation of doom likes a more intimate connection with a select few, for the house magically calls to certain people who see it in their dreams and feel compelled to come and see it in person. To find a new Warden, “[t]he house calls someone new—someone lost or lonely, someone whose home was stolen or sold or who never had a home in the first place. It calls them, and they come, and they are never homeless again” (215). One of the former Wardens of Starling House describes it as a “sanctuary,” and others are thankful to have found a home there when they did not feel at home in their own communities. Still others believe what Jasper tells Opal: “It’s not a sanctuary. It’s a grave” (216). This belief often arises from the violent deaths of the Wardens, for it soon becomes clear that the house takes as much as it gives. For this reason, Arthur disdains the house, treating it like his enemy because he knows what it has done to his parents and what it will eventually do to him.
Toward the end of the novel, Starling House takes on yet another role for Opal as she becomes the newest Warden, bonding with the house and gaining the ability to sense everything that occurs within its grounds. Eleanor Starling once thought of it as a home, but upon meeting her, Opal realizes that the house has become something else since Eleanor’s time. Opal tells her, “Starling House might have been yours in the beginning, Eleanor, but it’s mine now” (323), and asserts, “It will take me wherever I want to be, and no lock will hold against me” (323). In the novel’s epilogue, the people of Eden still have their own dark suspicions about the house, but Opal and Arthur have largely dispelled the curse of the place, making it a home and a safe space for anyone in Eden who needs one.
Gravely Power and the Mines
As both a company and a physical locations within Eden, Gravely Power represents the skewed power dynamics in Eden and highlights the central role that the Gravely family and its associated corporation have played in fomenting false narratives in the community as a whole. At the beginning of the novel, the already massive company exudes the energy of an intangible antagonist, for the company’s plans on expanding in Eden are already causing strife and anger amongst citizens who are concerned with the welfare of the local environment. The power plant has already polluted the air and water of Eden and endangered the human, plant, and animal residents of the town. Like all powerful people and entities in the novel, Gravely Power’s expansion highlights the uncomfortable truth that power is often gained at the expense of the powerless. Given the Gravely family’s former history as cruel enslavers, the dynamics of exploitation form the foundation upon which Gravely Power itself was built.
Opal is not entirely surprised when she learns that the original Gravely brothers used the labor of enslaved people to profit from the coal in their mines. To further highlight the systemic injustices of the town, Opal recounts the story of when a Gravely mine shaft closed after a boy fell in and died; she pointedly wonders “how many men died down in the dark before that one little white boy, and why his death is the only one we remember” (86). Yet Calliope Boone’s story of her ancestor, Nathaniel, mentions that the same mine shaft has an entrance “straight down into Hell itself” (89), and in addition to highlighting the paranormal aspects of the novel, this account also deliberately parallels the hellish experiences of the men who were forced to work within the mine every day. Ironically, it is only by falling through this crack in the earth that Nathaniel is able to find his own form of power: one that he tells Eleanor Starling about, and which ultimately comes back to haunt the Gravelys. This sequence of events shows that the Gravely family’s abuse of power comes full circle and proves to be their ultimate downfall.
The Underland/The Underland
Eleanor Starling’s book, The Underland, is a nearly true-to-life account of her experiences with the actual subterranean setting of the Underland that lies beneath Starling House. Both are symbolically significant and highlight the ways in which stories and power intersect throughout the novel. The Underland as a place is called “Hell itself,” and even Nathaniel Boone only describes it by claiming that “the Bible only got it half right: there were demons aplenty, but no fire at all” (89). However, the Underland’s demons or beasts are only manifestations from the minds of those people who dare to enter the Underland. As Eleanor points out, the river that leads there gives “form to our dreams, however foul. It means the only monsters here are the ones we make” (304). Essentially, everything in the Underland is made of people’s dreams, and the beasts there were only dreamed up to serve as protection for Nathaniel and Eleanor. However, as the years went on and Eleanor refused to relinquish her nightmares, she unleashed the terror of the beasts upon generations of Eden’s inhabitants, thereby mirroring the real-life dynamics of generational trauma.
The Underland as a story is the only narrative that comes closest to capturing Eleanor’s own personal truths, yet the character is convinced that no one will listen to her story or care. This belief stems from the fact that while she was alive, no one in Eden listened to her; instead, they preferred to believe the lies told by the powerful rather than acknowledging the truths of the powerless. Her story is treated the same way after her death, with all the rumors about her stemming from the lies that the Gravely brothers spread around Eden long ago. Yet Nora Lee (the protagonist of The Underland) and Eleanor herself are one and the same; in fact, “Nora Lee” is an outright anagram for “Eleanor.” Thus, the disregard for The Underland during Eleanor’s lifetime only confirms her belief that no one will ever listen to or validate her story. It is only after death that The Underland gains acclaim, with people feeling a connection to Eleanor’s story a century later. Both the Underland and The Underland stem from the minds of people whose voices were silenced, and both highlight the ways in which people in power wield the capacity to silence stories that cast them in an unfavorable light.
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