The Enchantress Of Florence

Emperor Akbar is the ruler of the Mughal Empire and, like many characters in the novel, is based on a historical figure. In the magical-realist world of The Enchantress of Florence, Akbar’s power is so great that he has the ability to reshape reality. He not only controls the lives of the hundreds of thousands of people who live in his empire, he can also bring people to life through the sheer force of his imagination. He invents two people: Jodha, his most beloved wife who fades from the novel as he loses interest in her, and a reborn version of Qara Koz, whom Akbar summons from the ether of fiction after becoming obsessed with Mogor’s story.

The way in which Akbar is able to dominate reality in this fashion is a product of the genre of the novel. In the genre of magical realism, the fantastical and the magical are presented as commonplace and mundane. The emperor can already dictate the lives of so many people, the novel suggests, so he would surely be able to summon figments of his imagination into existence. The existence of Jodha and the reborn Qara Koz illustrate Akbar’s power but also his vanity. He may have many wives, but the only ones he truly loves are those which are demonstrations of his own power. He falls in love not just with Jodha or Qara Koz, but with his own ability to make them real. As such, the novel uses the ideas of magical realism to portray the human flaws of the vain and powerful emperor, a man who loses himself as much as the imaginary women he claims to love the most.

Akbar is not only a vain emperor. He is an introspective figure who is caught between his duties to himself and his duties to his empire. This balance of responsibility is shown in the way that he explores his own identity. Akbar experiments with his pronouns. Having traditionally referred to himself by the royal “we,” a collective pronoun which announces to the world that he is more than just one man, Akbar begins to refer to himself by the first person singular “I.” This subtle acknowledgment that he is an individual as well as an emperor feels strange to him at first but he cannot bring the world to see him in the same way. After a brief attempt to individualize himself during a conversation with Jodha, he returns to the use of “we.” From then on, Akbar’s identity is defined by his empire and his experiments are relegated to the past. Similarly, he executes a rebellious princeling because he feels a duty to remove political opposition. However, he institutes the man’s idea for a debating chamber in which free speech can be exercised. Akbar appreciates the philosophical concept of debate and free speech but cannot abandon his duties as emperor.

At the end of Mogor’s story, Akbar asserts his authority once again. He wrests control of the narrative and insists that Mogor is the product of incest. As with Jodha, Akbar’s insistence reshapes the world. Mogor may or may not be the product of incest but Akbar’s control over the narrative and his control over the empire mean that everyone chooses to believe it. Likewise, Akbar has the power to reverse this reality and reinstate Mogor to his court. Before he can do so, Mogor is driven away from Sikri, and the emperor is soon forced to abandon the city. Akbar learns that he was correct and incorrect at the same time; he blames himself for the loss of his city and accepts responsibility for falsely driving Mogor away. Not only does he lose his capital, but he loses his friend and his favorite storyteller. Akbar’s acknowledgment of his own failures suggests he still maintains the capacity to regard himself as an individual and not just an empire, even in the moments he regrets.

The titular Enchantress of Florence is known by many names. She is Angelica, Qara Koz, and Lady Black Eyes, depending on her audience. In this respect, her identity is never truly her own. There is never an authentic portrayal of her in the novel because she exists as a reflection of other people’s desires. Whether growing up in the shadow of her jealous sister, getting kidnapped by a rapacious Shah, or being saved by Argalia, she is able to protect herself by becoming whoever she needs to be in any given moment.

In an ironic twist, she is also accompanied by her servant, the Mirror. The Mirror is described as closely resembling Angelica, to the point where she echoes Angelica’s words and actions. The Mirror is a reflection of a woman who is herself a reflection, so that the two of them are able to create an infinite chain of fragmented identities which spread out from East to West and beguile people from India to Italy to America. When Angelica arrives in Florence, she is hailed as an enchantress. In this moment, she accepts the role. She is credited with miracles and astonishing feats; she allows herself to be seen in the streets, appearing exactly as exotic and as magical as her newfound fans believe her to be. She is publicly performing the role of Angelica, all while plotting with the Mirror to escape when the city turns on her. She knows that no identity is permanent, and no safety lasts forever.

At the end of the novel, Angelica’s time in Florence ends. The fluidity of identity which has saved her for so long is weaponized against her. The swiftness with which she is transformed from an enchantress to a witch is damning, telling Angelica that she needs to leave. She is no longer reflecting an identity that society desires; now, society is projecting an identity on to her. Angelica, the Mirror, and Ago flee to America. The journey is just another example of Angelica’s journey from East to West. From India to Persia to Italy and then to the Americas, she is driven further and further from her homeland. Her identity becomes unfixed and unknowable, smeared across the continents and oceans over which she has been forced to travel.

Angelica is never truly known to the audience, not even to Mogor or Akbar. She finishes the story as a reincarnation, a figment of Akbar’s desire who is conjured into existence to perform one last identity for the Mughal Empire. This final form of Angelica is the platonic ideal of her character. She is untethered from any real or physical person who ever actually existed. Instead, she is a manifestation of the lusts and desires of a man who has only heard of her secondhand. This Angelica is no less real than any of the other Angelicas portrayed in the novel, simply because any attempt at knowing or understanding the real person is an attempt to peek behind the ethereal veil of unknowability.