52 pages • 1-hour read
The Jackal's Mistress
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Symbols & Motifs
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of graphic violence, illness, death, racism, and gender discrimination.
The Colts and Carbine
The Colt revolvers and the carbine rifle symbolize Libby’s willingness to go to great lengths to protect her household, developing the theme of Civilian Resilience Under Military Authority. After Joseph kills the Mosby’s ranger in the opening scene, Libby shows her resilience by burying the corpse and holster; she demonstrates her practicality by keeping and hiding the gun on her person. Though she initially intends to get ammunition, she keeps the gun a secret after traveling to Leveritt Covington’s. Once there, she realizes she cannot ask about Colt ammunition without revealing the suspicious fact that she has one, and she now doubts whether Covington can be trusted. When she collects more Colts and the carbine from the men she murders on the way to Harper’s Ferry, she chooses to keep the growing arsenal a secret from Sally and Jubilee. The guns represent Libby’s strong feelings of obligation to keep her household as safe as possible, even if she must hide them and cover the truth.
Libby also keeps the guns a secret from Weybridge until Morgan’s search of the property. Initially, she does not tell him about the weapons because it seems insensible to trust the “jackal” with the information. However, as Libby grows close to Weybridge, she learns she can trust him; in fact, she entrusts him with the use of the weapons in fighting Morgan at the novel’s climax, just as she entrusts him with her other secrets, extending this trust to further protect her household, illustrating just how far she is willing to go to do it.
The Lack of a Mistress Bullet
A “mistress bullet” is the one a soldier might use to die by suicide; as taught to Weybridge by a man from West Point: “This was the bullet that would do for you the things your wife never would” (57). The army left Weybridge no mistress bullet when they abandoned him, and this lack comes to symbolize his inability to control his fate as he battles terrible pain and infection. That the young soldiers of the previously proud Union army would abandon one of its own captains in the rush to reposition represents their desperation and haste as just another indicator of the further abandonment of honor that the novel represents on both sides of the conflict. The lack of a mistress bullet also foreshadows Weybridge’s continued loss of independence in the early days of his recovery at Libby’s, when he must acquiesce to caretaking from others and relinquish control of his very life.
Weybridge only briefly yearns for a mistress bullet, which demonstrates his strong will to survive. Later, true to character, Libby scoffs at the notion, calling it “improper, salacious, and just the sort of stupid thing a man would think. And more cowardly than heroic” (258); her severe judgment of this option—which, to Libby, is not an acceptable choice—develops the theme of Moral Decisions Amid Societal Collapse. Outwardly, Weybridge agrees, but he wonders how much temptation a mistress bullet would have represented had one been available, highlighting his greater understanding of the devastation that might make it an attractive option.
Weybridge’s Literary Allusions
A motif of literary allusions helps to characterize Weybridge. Weybridge is a large man with a significant physical presence and a captain with leadership capabilities and strategic prowess; however, his love and knowledge of literature show another side of this three-dimensional character. For example, in the abandoned house, he weeps to realize that dying means he will not see his boys grow to love Charles Dickens (Great Expectations, 1861, David Copperfield, 1850) and Edgar Allan Poe (“The Tell-Tale Heart,” 1843, “Murders in the Rue Morgue,” 1841). When Jubilee introduces herself, he connects her name to a celebratory event in the Bible’s Book of Leviticus. When Sally uses the word “girl” for Libby, he tries to recall a James Fenimore Cooper quote from The Deerslayer (1841) to compare to Libby’s strength. He also quotes Ralph Waldo Emerson (“Self-Reliance,” 1841, “Nature,” 1836) while looking at the sky on the porch with Libby, commenting, “When it is dark enough you can see the stars” (228). This reference hints that he is turning toward hope, in juxtaposition to the tears he sheds in the abandoned house.
Moments like these show indirectly that Weybridge is a learned academic who employs the wisdom of the classics. His references also help Jubilee and Libby see Weybridge as a person with emotions and desires, not just a soldier, Yankee, or enemy. Consequently, this motif helps to build the theme of Humanizing the Enemy Through Shared Vulnerability.
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