Anna Of Byzantium

The final chapters of Anna of Byzantium are bittersweet in tone, as Anna finds tranquility and happiness in the wake of immense loss. Where she treated the nuns with disrespect and even contempt in the book’s earliest chapters, she now understands them to be friends. Highlighting this shift are her private meetings with the mother superior, with whom she senses a kindred spirit. She writes:

She is an affectionate person who treats all the sisters as her daughters. She calls me to her room on some pretext, but then keeps me there talking about history, about my mother, about the Franks who overran our country during the Crusade, about anything she can think of. She is more educated than the rest of them (except Sister Thekla), and I think her mind is as starved as mine for intelligent conversation (195-96).

In the early days of her exile, Anna relegated the mother superior strictly to an inferior status, calling her a “meek little [woman]” (3). However, in this passage, Anna understands education to be a force that makes them equal and forges their friendship. In addition to forming interpersonal connections with the nuns, Anna begins to integrate herself more fully into their community, serving as their healer and joining them in prayer. Such a marked shift provokes a response from the nuns, further emphasizing the extreme change that has occurred in Anna’s demeanor. Despite being extreme, however, the change is a joyful one since it contributes to the community’s well-being as well as Anna’s. This represents a conclusion to the theme of Lust for Power in a Religious Society, as Anna finds peace and safety in an institution created to uphold religious values. Symbolically, the convent inherently opposes the palace, which is a representation of politics and power.

The joy that Anna feels in this new stage of her life is encapsulated in her reaction to watching farmers work in the fields: “‘What I saw delighted me,’ she writes, ‘Far off, tiny figures were bending low, planting. […] I said impulsively, ‘It looks just like Sophia’s favorite picture!’” (199). Though she previously scoffed at the joy Sophia felt while looking at the picture, Anna is now able to find happiness by looking at a similar scene in real life—both because it is beautiful and because it reminds her of Sophia. This change is indicative of her newfound general contentment and her changing feelings about Sophia’s friendship. Overall, friendship is something she has come to embrace wholeheartedly. When she is reunited with Sophia, she tells her, “I have no need of a maid […] But I do need a friend,” indicating that her previous fixation on hierarchy has dissipated (203). This indicates that her Youthful Impressionability in Politics has been resolved; she has matured enough to realize the negative impact of the political world and accept that trusting, positive relationships are far more satisfying.

Underlying all of these positive changes, however, is sorrow over the loss of her previous life and loved ones such as Irene and Simon. The final theme to reach its conclusion is Competing Definitions of Family, and it has the most poignant ending, as Anna’s mother and tutor are forever lost to her. The realization that Simon was a real father to her, for example, is something Anna can never share with him because of his death. She tells Sophia and Malik, “I wished I could have told him that I loved him […] and that I now realized he had not betrayed me, but saved me” (205). This tearful moment resolves the longstanding dynamic in which Simon tried to warn Anna about her dangerous actions and she ignored him. Though Anna fears that her revelation came too late, Sophia’s reassurance that Simon “knew” suggests that a physical reunion was not necessary for reconciliation, since they both independently forgave each other. Despite the grief that Anna must now deal with regarding Irene and Simon, she is still able to enjoy her new definition of family through Sophia and her family, who Anna is no longer above in a social hierarchy. The book thus ends on a note of forgiveness. After many chapters filled with Anna’s resentment for her family members and her exertion of power over Sophia, she can understand others’ actions, make peace with how they’ve impacted her, and exhibit a more loving attitude toward others.