53 pages • 1 hour read
Adrienne YoungFable
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2020A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
The Lark
The Lark serves as a symbol illustrating the perils of attachment and the need for belonging. Fable spends the first 14 years of her life aboard her parents’ ship, which she cherishes as “the only home [she’d] ever known” (152). The Lark’s wreck demonstrates the perils of attachment in this dangerous maritime world because the protagonist loses her home, her family, and her entire way of life as she knows it in one storm. During her years on Jeval, Fable’s only source of belonging is her memories of the ship, and her frequent mentions of the Lark in her narration emphasize her isolation.
The Lark also operates as a symbol of familial legacy. Saint gives the sunken ship and the fortune in its cargo hold to his daughter as her inheritance: “There was enough coin and gems there to do whatever I wanted. After four years of scraping every single day, I would want for nothing” (194). Further developing the theme, Fable has to utilize skills she inherits from both of her parents to retrieve the treasure, such as her mother’s training as a dredger and gem sage and her father’s ability to navigate Tempest Snare. Returning to the Lark helps Fable process her trauma and move forward. She’ll always carry her memories of the ship just as she’ll always carry her family’s legacy with her. However, she finds another source of belonging with West on the Marigold, and her inheritance gives her a chance for a new life.
Fable’s Scar
Fable’s scar functions as a symbol of The Significance of Familial Legacy. Before Saint abandons his 14-year-old daughter on Jeval, he uses a knife to cut “smooth, curving lines that reached from [her] elbow to [her] wrist” (185). Like many aspects of the protagonist’s complicated familial legacy, the scar is a source of both pain and protection. Fable tries to make sense of the physical and psychological wounds her father inflicted by telling herself that “his mind had been fractured by grief” over her mother’s death (48). At the same time, the Jevalis’ belief that sea demons made the scar was “the only thing that kept [her] alive on the island” for a time (10). In a similar combination of positive and negative attributes, the gem sage abilities Fable inherits from her mother help her survive on Jeval but also make her a target for Zola. Eventually, Fable turns her pain into something meaningful when she uses the scar to safely guide the Marigold through Tempest Snare, a maze of reefs that has sunk countless ships. This bold and courageous act affirms that, while Fable’s scar is a permanent part of her just like her family’s legacy, she has the power to decide what she does with that legacy.
Willa’s Dagger
Willa’s dagger serves as a symbol of the perils of attachment. Fable offers a description of the blade’s beauty in Chapter 13: “The blue and violet stones were set in swirling patterns, sparkling so the light rolled like waves over their facets. Their unique voices danced between my fingers like the notes of a song” (108). Willa stole the jeweled dagger from an intoxicated man when she was five years old and has kept it ever since. Although the blade is “the only thing of value” she owns, she claims that the object is “not special” (160). Willa’s protestations adhere to the Narrows’ rule that it’s dangerous to allow anyone to know who or what matters to her. The dagger becomes important to the plot and the theme of attachment when West’s desperation to retrieve the knife reveals how important Willa is to him: “[H]e didn’t just want it. He needed it for some reason. If I knew what that reason was, I might be able to find just a little leverage” (110). Fable uses this vulnerability to increase her compensation for retrieving the dagger, which offers a demonstration of the perils of attachment. Fable’s visit to the gambit for Willa’s dagger foreshadows her return to the gambit at the novel’s ending. She makes her second visit to buy back West’s ring and is abducted by Zola in a stark and suspenseful demonstration of the perils of attachment.
Related Titles
By Adrienne Young
