“My parents tried to pretend everything was just fine, but we took back alleys, and they watched the corners at every street.”

This description indirectly characterizes Janie, demonstrating her discernment and critical faculties. Although her parents try to act as though there’s nothing to worry about, Janie is perceptive enough to note their vigilance and concerns despite what they tell her. Her acumen helps establish The Intelligence of Children as a theme.

“I didn’t have a uniform yet, and wore my bright green Hepburn trousers and a yellow sweater, which looked normal in LA, but here looked clownishly out of place. I might as well have carried a giant sign saying I DON’T BELONG.”

This indirect characterization demonstrates Janie’s typicality; she isn’t exceptionally confident, wise, or smart. She is, in many ways, a normal 14-year-old, teetering somewhere between childhood and adulthood, learning to make her way in a world that is outside her comfort zone. Her obvious discomfort and desire for confidence help ground her character in realism, making her a relatable narrator.

“He had a thrilling, defiant voice to go with his thrilling, defiant face.”

Janie’s first impression of Benjamin is positive: She sees his willingness to stand up for his principles despite receiving pushback from adults as courageous. The repetition of the words “thrilling” and “defiant” shows that she’s drawn to and inspired by his rebellion. This directly characterizes Benjamin and also indirectly contributes to Janie’s characterization.

“They were happy and comfortable with one another, and good at what they did, and they didn’t treat me like a child. They treated me like one of them. I thought about the apothecary’s powder and realized I wasn’t homesick anymore.”

When Janie visits her parents at work, she’s struck by the grown-up way they treat and talk to her. Being treated as a peer or fellow helps alleviate her feelings of homesickness because she feels a sense of belonging with them and their boss. This points to the intelligence of children as a theme and demonstrates how treating children without condescension can positively influence their development and emotional health.

“I felt suddenly and sadly grown up—not because I had brought a boy to meet my parents, but because I had told them a lie.”

Janie is at a significant developmental phase: adolescence. She loves and respects her parents, but she’s learning that she’ll sometimes have to do things they don’t want her to. She feels deeply principled, and she knows that telling her parents the truth will cause them to worry and try to protect her, limiting her freedom, so she lies. This description provides evidence for Janie’s dynamism as a character.

“Many of the processes in the book began as methods of healing, many generations ago: How to close a wound? How to combat sickness in the human body? Those were the original questions, but in certain minds they took unexpected directions, having to do with the fundamentals of matter […] The world is made up of atoms, which can be influenced and masked and even rearranged, by someone with the necessary skills.”

Marcus Burrows’s explanation of the Pharmacopoeia’s contents highlights The Coexistence of Science and Magic as a theme. Those who wrote down the recipes for elixirs and serums were often trying to heal others’ illnesses or injuries. As the saying goes, “Necessity is the mother of invention”: Thus, practitioners manipulate the building blocks of matter to help patients and, sometimes, get creative. This helps explain why certain recipes, like the avian elixir, exist.

“‘You know what other thing “samovar” means, in Russia?’ he asked. ‘It is a word for the soldiers who lost their arms and their legs in the war, from shells and exploding mines. Because they look like teapot with no arms and legs, you see?’”

This metaphor, comparing wounded war veterans to limbless teapots, reveals cultural insensitivity that helps explain why Leonid Shiskin has turned against his home country. He’s embittered by the Soviets’ treatment of his brother, who came home from World War II with significant injuries and was sent away to Siberia so that people wouldn’t have to look at him. The novel prioritizes loyalty, but Meloy uses this metaphor to help excuse Shiskin’s treason. His reasons for disloyalty to his home country, when juxtaposed with Danby’s traitorous actions, make Shiskin seem much more thoughtful and principled than Danby. His respect for the children’s intelligence, when compared with Danby’s pretense of respect, adds to his characterization.

“We ran on, and the children all jumped up from their desks and spilled after us. They filled the hall, blocking the way like a herd of sheep. I heard the matron shouting at them to stand aside.”

Inside Turnbull House, the incarcerated children immediately come to the aid of Janie and Benjamin. When Benjamin shouts that they’re being pursued by a villain, the children—who are strangers to him—rush to assist, thematically demonstrating both the intelligence of children and The Power of Loyalty. In addition, the simile that compares the group of children to a herd of slow-moving sheep creates a vivid image of how they simply block the pursuers, giving the other children time to escape.

“And then the giant tabby reached our branch and pounced on Benjamin’s back. Benjamin screeched, in his thin bird’s voice, and tried to fly away, but she had him in her claws. I was paralyzed with fear, but Pip wasn’t. He flew straight at the cat’s huge yellow eyes with his sharp beak. She yowled in pain, dropping Benjamin to the ground.”

Janie’s description of how Pip takes care of Benjamin, shortly after they meet, emphasizes the power of loyalty as a theme. Though the cat poses a huge threat to Pip’s tiny bird’s body, he doesn’t hesitate to save Benjamin after Benjamin liberates him—via the avian elixir—from Turnbull. Then, when the cat turns its attention to Pip, Janie attacks the feline, saving Pip, who was caught while saving Benjamin. The children’s immediate and intense loyalty highlights their intelligence and strong sense of morality.

“It struck me as funny that Pip had no problem running across a peaked roof three stories off the ground, or attacking a monstrous cat as a tiny bird, but when confronted with a school, even after hours, he looked scared. It was as if someone might come after him with a butterfly net and pin him inside a case.”

It’s ironic that Pip is comfortable risking life and limb to run across a roof or attack a larger predator yet balks at the idea of walking into a school. This suggests how poorly he’s treated at Turnbull and how Dickensian the place is. The simile that compares him to a butterfly trying to escape being caught and killed emphasizes the fragility of his social position as a member of the lower class and a child. It also highlights his beauty and his unique characteristics and abilities.

“The clash between what I knew and what I saw made my dizzy.”

When Janie first experiences invisibility, she struggles to reconcile what she sees with what she knows is true. She knows her body is present but can’t see it. This dizzying feeling helps explain how science and magic can coexist without detection in the “real” world. People are accustomed to experiencing the world in a certain way because this is what they’re taught; when one’s experience of the world differs wildly from these teachings, one often writes off the experiences as products of illness or imagination.

“When I think now about how much eavesdropping me did, I realize that being fourteen had prepared us for it.”

The children in the novel are aware and capable of far more than most adults in their lives realize. As a teen, Janie is accustomed to forming ideas about the world by listening to both what adults say and what they omit. This practice and her realization highlight the intelligence of children as a theme.

“Jin Lo sighed at this sentimentality and let him have the beaker. Benjamin held it in both hands and turned away from us. He was telling his father something, but even in the small room, I couldn’t hear the words.”

Janie’s description of Benjamin after his father turns into a pile of salt demonstrates the boy’s dynamism and growth as a character. While he used to write off his father as a boring pill counter, the idea that he might have lost his father to the Soviets helps him realize how deeply he cares about the man. This experience helps Benjamin reprioritize his values and appreciate his father more.

“‘In my day, a girl with any looks on her never bothered with Latin,’ Mrs. Parrish said. ‘Boys didn’t like a girl who was too smart.’”

The Scotts’ landlady, Mrs. Parrish, holds an outdated and insensitive view of girls since she suggests that pretty girls don’t need to be smart because they’ll attract a boy more quickly with looks than intellect. Mrs. Parrish’s comment showcases Janie’s independence, something that makes her different from many girls and women during this era. Mrs. Parrish’s comment helps contextualize Janie’s differences.

“The work has always been accelerated by wartime, when the offenses to the human body are increased. When new and innovative ways are found to hurt, we find new and innovative ways to combat injury and pain. And there have, of course, been offshoots of the practice, and discoveries that have nothing to do with medicine.”

Burrows explains that apothecaries’ work increases during periods when more people become injured, such as in wartime. His explanation helps clarify how recipes such as the invisibility serum or the “Smell of Truth” are created. This thematically indicates how the coexistence of science and magic comes to be.

“The Soviets were making their own bomb, and the Americans were building bigger ones. Both countries were arming themselves with weapons that could destroy the world. People said that as long as they both had such terrible weapons, no one would ever use them. But I thought I knew something about people and their weapons. They want to use them.”

Burrows’s explanation of how he became involved in the work to contain the damage done by new weapons technology shows how he’s like Robin Hood, whose legend the text alludes to multiple times. Unbeknownst to his son, Burrows stands up to power and to those who might use it to harm others. He’s principled and has a deep moral conscience, desiring to protect others just like the fabled hero.

“He creates a temporal lag in his immediate vicinity, from which he is exempt, so that he can move quickly. It’s remarkable. The Hungarians are so adept at physics, and also at mathematics and music. I’ve always thought it must be because so few people speak their language. They’ve found extralinguistic means to interact with the rest of the world.”

Burrows’s explanation of Count Vilmos’s ability to “freeze time,” so to speak, accounts for something that seems magical by relying on scientific principle. He believes that the value his culture places on various scientific and mathematical subjects enables the count’s desire to help humanity. Furthermore, Burrows suggests that Hungarians’ desire to interact with a world that doesn’t speak their language compels them to find other ways of relating to that world, such as through the use of these universal subjects.

“Then he looked up, and we all watched the smoke from the tree gather itself into a dark cloud. Again there was a rumbling noise, and this time it came from inside the cloud, like thunder. But it wasn’t thunder: It was more like an expression of disapproval. I can’t describe the cloud accurately except to say that it seemed to have intelligence.”

Janie’s description of the black smoke that rises from the jaival tree after Burrows forces it to bloom in the physic garden capitalizes on known scientific laws and extends them. The cloud’s creation suggests that it’s the consequence, or effect, of the apothecary’s manipulation of nature. When he forces nature to do something unnatural, it responds by creating—or unleashing—what Burrows calls the “Dark Force.” This force is personified, apparently possessing will and intention, as if in judgment of the action that provoked its appearance.

“What did Oscar Wilde say? ‘To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.’”

Vili alludes to Oscar Wilde’s comedy The Importance of Being Earnest by quoting one of Lady Bracknell’s most comical lines. Her character is powerful and imperious, but she often says ridiculous things without realizing how preposterous they are. The count parroting this line indirectly characterizes him as an individual who can laugh at himself and his misfortunes.

“‘Whenever we tamper with natural laws, there are consequences,’ the count said. ‘The larger the disruption, the larger the consequence. The name of your Pharmacopoeia, for example, comes from the ancient Greek Pharmakon, which meant both “drug” and “poison”: the power to heal and harm.’”

Vili explains the Dark Force to Janie. He also talks about how world events as well as the recipes in the Pharmacopoeia have a sort of dual nature, as in the way the Greek word pharmakon refers to both a helpful or healing drug and a harmful poison. This explanation helps thematically account for the coexistence of science and magic.

“The Arctic had seized us in its icy teeth and wouldn’t let go.”

Janie personifies the Arctic as having teeth and the will to bite. This both suggests how painfully cold the air is and foreshadows the dangers that Janie’s group faces in this place.

“Something small grew out of the surface of Nova Zembla, blooming orange and red like a monstrous flower in the failing light.”

Janie uses a simile to compare the cloud created by the Soviets’ bomb to a “monstrous flower” that is orange and red in color. This describes not only the cloud’s appearance but also how it moves and expands, like how a flower blooms from a bud into a blossom.

“If there were no fear, there would be no power. Those nations, including our own, would want to prevent the use and knowledge of any antidote to the bomb.”

Burrows explains why he feels so compelled to involve himself in such a dangerous occupation. His principles urge him to stand up to powerful governments that might create horrible weapons and then exploit the fear that those weapons create to manipulate other governments and peoples. This adds to his characterization as a modern-day Robin Hood.