54 pages • 1 hour read
A River Enchanted
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Symbols & Motifs
Plaid
Plaids appear frequently throughout A River Enchanted. The first plaid to appear is Jack’s enchanted plaid from Mirin, which he uses to protect his harp from the water when he swims to Cadence. The next plaid to appear offers Jack himself protection: When Jack meets Torin at the clan line, Torin wraps his plaid around Jack to protect him from the cold and to illustrate that he is a Tamerlaine. However, beneath the plaid, his own clothes “were plain and hung from him like an ill-fated fortune” (28). His clothes from the mainland do not offer protection; instead they are associated with “ill fate,” or negative outcomes. When Jack puts on the clothes his mother Mirin made him, “[t]o his shock, they fit him perfectly. The wool was warm and soft against his skin, and the plaid came around him like an embrace” (68). The protective “embrace” of his mother’s magic stands in direct contrast to the “ill fate” promised by his mainland clothing. The plaid brings Jack comfort and a feeling of safety, and it symbolizes his enduring connection to the Tamerlaine clan.
The plaids, however, can also represent secrets. When Jack first sees Adaira, she is wearing her red plaid. Adaira’s initial secret is that she was the one to summon Jack to Cadence. The plaid designates her position as Tamerlaine heiress (red is the color of the Tamerlaines) and symbolizes the secret that she keeps from Jack. While Adaira’s plaid represents secrets, it is also symbolic of the protection she received from her parents, both from danger and from the inconvenient truth of her history, a secret Mirin has woven into the fabric. With the reveal of Adaira’s secret, her protection from the Tamerlaines is gone, and she tears apart the plaid, symbolically renouncing the clan that has rejected her as an outsider.
Jack’s Harp
Jack’s harp serves as a symbol of his connection to east Cadence. Jack receives his harp in his fifth year of university, and though he receives the harp on the mainland, his harp has “[c]arvings of vines and leaves […] burned into the sides, simple adornment compared to other harps” (100). While the other harps are more ornate, Jack’s has natural decorations, representative of the beautiful natural world that Jack feels connected to Cadence. This is also the harp Jack uses to summon the spirits, further solidifying his connection to nature. When Jack first plays for Frae, she “watched with rapt attention as Jack withdrew his harp. Its first time breathing the air of the isle” (100). The harp is personified as aching for the air of Cadence. The first breath the harp takes of the isle air results in Jack’s beautiful playing of a song about the seasons, a song inherently connected to nature on Cadence.
This personification of the harp continues when Bane warps the harp: “He could hear his harp’s last metallic note as it died, scorched and ruined” (371). The harp is alive to Jack, alive enough that Bane can kill it. Bane’s attempt to sever Jack’s connection to east Cadence and its land reflects his attempts to pull Adaira to the west and break her connection to Jack. Jack tries to abandon music to join Adaira in the west, saying he’ll leave behind his harp, which is too warped to play anyway. The warped harp reflects Jack’s willingness to give up his connection to east Cadence.
Enchanted Dirks
The enchanted dirks symbolize truth in A River Enchanted. The most obvious example is the dirk that Jack receives from his father, as it forces whoever it cuts to speak the truth. When Jack and Adaira use the dirk together, they reveal certain truths that they’ve kept from each other and from the world, with Jack expressing his feelings of isolation and loneliness and Adaira expressing her grief for her mother. When the dirk cuts, it brings the truth to the surface. Adaira looks at the knife, taking Jack’s “stubborn hand forward and stud[ying] the dirk’s gleam, the bloody edge of the steel” (338). The blood on the knife is the truth leaking out of Jack, his pain made visual for Adaira to understand.
Jack’s dirk also offers him the opportunity to find out more about his father. He knows it’s enchanted, but Una tells him that she did not forge it. This gives him insight into the fact that his father is a Breccan, because if Una did not forge it, it must be Breccan-forged. The truths that Jack discovers thanks to the dirk—the identity of his father, and Adaira’s grief—may be difficult to cope with, but they also bring the characters a greater understanding of themselves and their place in the world.
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By Rebecca Ross
