63 pages • 2-hour read
The Book of Magic
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Symbols & Motifs
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of illness or death, death by suicide, emotional abuse, and substance use.
Red
The color red symbolizes magic and love in The Book of Magic. Its associations repeat in various iterations, such as “[r]ed blossom, red heart, red magic, red love” (11) and “[r]ed for blood, for magic, for love” (340). Red is associated with the heart and blood, as well as flowers, enhancing the symbolism of magic and love. Red is central to performing spells and their result. For instance, the “Red Death” (306) curse from The Book of the Raven creates red clouds and poisonous red rain. This left-handed magic is deadly. However, “red thread” (125) is used for protection. Red is the color of both black and green magic; red doesn’t necessarily indicate that something is evil.
When Sally rejects her bloodline magic, she can no longer see the color red. When Tom hexes Ian for the first time, Sally can see the red color of the poisonous powder that Tom used. Eventually, she sees other reds:
The color red had come back to her slowly, first in Ian’s flat on the day she met him, in flashes of rose and scarlet, until one day she was cutting an apple for them to share and the color was so brilliant that she burst into tears. Red, after all, was the color of love (369).
Thus, Sally loses her color-blindness when she accepts love and magic back into her life.
The color red is also associated with Franny. She has red hair, tinted with madder root. Antonia sees a drowned redhead in a divinatory dream, but doesn’t see who the hair belongs to. When Ian removes Franny from the pond, her “red hair [is] wringing wet, leaving scarlet drops of madder root tint on the grass” (351). Antonia dreamed about red hair; it was part of a premonition about Franny’s death. In addition, Franny wore red boots her whole life and left them on the shore of the pond. Her hair and boots were symbols of magic that she chose to embrace.
Birds
Birds, especially crows, are important symbols in The Book of Magic. In the Owens family, “crows [signify] good fortune” (239). They’re a positive symbol. Furthermore, Franny has a crow named Lewis as her familiar, and Sally adopts a crow and names it Houdini after Franny’s death. Rumor holds that their ancestor “Maria could turn herself into a crow” (4). The Owens women love crows more than most non-magical people.
Franny sees a crow while she’s reading Sally’s palm lines. This predicts not only that Houdini will enter her life but also that Ian will. Ian has a large crow tattoo on his back. Franny knows that “crows [are] more intelligent than most men, and more loyal […] You [can] not choose them, they must choose you, they must come to you and once they did they would never leave you, at least not of their own accord” (188). Crows also symbolize loyalty and intelligence. When Franny sacrifices herself to break the curse, crows call out in Thornfield. They symbolize the salvation of the Owens family, as well as their loss of a member.
In addition to crows, a sparrow always visits the Owens family on the Midsummer holiday. Their tradition is to chase it out of the house on Magnolia Street. A sparrow appears out of season, in March, after Jet dies. This sparrow symbolizes her lingering spirit. She wants to make sure that her family escapes the curse. Gillian names her daughter Francesca Bridget, but she’s “called Birdie by one and all” (363). Birdie can call birds to her, even as a baby, via her bloodline magic. This bird represents a miracle for Gillian, who struggled to conceive.
Water
Water has several symbolic meanings in the novel. Water was used in witch trials, and Hoffman maintains that bloodline witches float. They can’t dive underwater, and they’re attracted to water: “When you couldn’t drown, water was the element you were drawn to” (81). In addition to floating, witches can locate water magically: “Like any witch, Franny could smell water” (341). When Sally loses her bloodline magic, she can swim underwater, but she can’t smell water from a distance.
Water is part of premonitions and magic. Antonia dreams of a woman drowning and wakes “with a gasp, spitting water” (143). She divines Franny’s death and is physically affected by the divination. When Tom curses Ian, it’s “as if he were drowning, and he spat out water, nearly choking” (172). Ian’s action mirrors Antonia’s. Both premonitions and black magic include physical reactions involving water. Gillian has a positive vision of Sally in water with fish and bells. In this case, water is part of the symbolism of love.
In addition, water removes the magical glue Jet uses on The Book of the Raven. In this case, water is the key to unlocking how to remove a curse. Breaking the curse involves not only Franny’s drowning, but also her family grimoire’s drowning. Franny is “a boat out in the ocean […] ready to do what she must” (345). This metaphor compares Franny to a ship: She’s willing to sink to obtain salvation for her family.
Deathwatch Beetle
The sound of the deathwatch beetle signals that someone is going to die. As the novel opens, the deathwatch beetle sounds for Jet. It’s one way she knows she’s going to die. At the novel’s end, the deathwatch beetle sounds for Franny. Both Gillian and Sally hear it. Franny, on her way to sacrifice herself, says to the beetle, “Stop being so bossy […] I know where I’m going” (340). She’s the first Owens to respond in this way, and it sets her apart from the other witches in her family: Her sacrifice stops the beetle from sounding for targets of the curse.
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