35 pages • 1 hour read
A Touch of Darkness
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Symbols & Motifs
Persephone’s Crown
The souls of Asphodel gift Persephone a crown after she spends time in the Underworld trying to grow her garden and getting to know the people who live in Hades’s realm. The crown is floral in nature, displaying roses, lilies, and narcissus blooms. Both the crown and the flowers carry important symbology. Roses represent love and are associated with Aphrodite, thus representing the love of Hades and the souls for Persephone and foreshadowing Aphrodite’s role in their relationship. Lilies in Greek mythos represent rebirth and motherhood and are associated with Hera, the wife of Zeus. While Hera does not appear in the novel, Persephone experiences a metaphoric rebirth as she grows away from her mother. The narcissus flower is the flower of Hades’s domain, tying the crown to the Underworld.
The crown is representative of Persephone’s status in the Underworld. The souls grow to respect her as they would a queen, even outside her relationship with Hades. They make the crown without consulting Hades, in adoration of her kindness and attention to them. Hades confirms this at the novel’s conclusion, telling her “My people will always see you as their mistress because of how you have treated them, whether you love me or not” (378). Her crown becomes an extension of her authority as a divinity, an authority that builds on her past as a powerless goddess. She now has both magical and social power, and the crown symbolizes those new facets of her life.
Horns
The gods and goddesses in A Touch of Darkness possess horns as symbols of their divine stature. The horns vary in appearance for each divine figure and can be hidden by glamour, or enchantment magic. For Persephone, her horns begin as a source of conflict and embarrassment. They are proof of her divinity but are also a reminder of her unmanifested magic; this is reinforced every time she relies on someone else’s magic to hide them and allow her to continue her “mortal” existence. The first time she willingly presents herself as a goddess is also the night that Hades becomes her first worshipper, bridging the gap between her and her magic. The horns become a symbol of the divinity that she earned, just as she earned her place as mistress of the Underworld.
Narcissus Flowers
The narcissus flower is commonly referred to as the daffodil or jonquil. It is typically white with a yellow center, although botanists have cultivated other varieties. In traditional Greek mythology, the narcissus is the flower that Persephone was gathering when she was first kidnapped by Hades. In this novel, the author repurposes the symbology, having the narcissus flower serve as Hades’s symbol before he and Persephone even meet. Additionally, the term “daffodil” is believed to have been derived from the word Asphodel, which is also connected to the asphodel flower. According to mythology, these flowers grow in the Asphodel meadow.
Persephone specifically deals with the narcissus flowers on two occasions within the text. In the first, she observes the flowers while at a coffee shop. This leads her to ruminate on Hades, his power, and his apparent cruelty toward mortals. In the beginning, narcissus flowers represent death, decay, and apathy. However, the second time she encounters them, she is striving to create life in the Underworld. She visits a flower shop whose owner refuses to carry seeds for the bloom. Her retort to his superstition reveals a change in her view of Hades. She speaks in his defense, lashing out against ignorance. Although this change occurs early in their romance, it is a precursor to her eventual transformation into his advocate and partner.
Water
The Underworld has a multitude of water sources that all pose different dangers and attractions for Persephone. Her interactions with the water in Hades’s realm represent her minimal understanding of the divine world, despite her upbringing. While she knows about the gods and their specialties, she does not know about their homes and what lurks in them. She faces danger on several occasions because of her lack of divine education, showcasing the ways that she is out of place in the world of the gods. She has more knowledge of the mortal plane than of her true peers, and the numerous times she comes into danger because of water highlight that ignorance.
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