Heartless

Jest is Cath’s love interest. He is first introduced as the King’s court jester, but the reader later learns that Jest is actually from the land of Chess, where he serves the White Queen as a Rook. Jest has been sent to Hearts to steal Cath’s heart, but in the process, he falls in love with her. Jest’s primary conflict, although it is not revealed until later, is between his duty to his country and his love for Cath. Jest’s character has the greatest impact on Cath; their relationship is a vehicle for the Being True to Your Own Heart theme, but ultimately Jest’s death unleashes Love as a Destructive Force.

Jest helps Cath embrace her true self. His role is suggested at their first meeting in Chapter 7, when Jest surreptitiously loosens Cath’s corset after she faints to help her breathe better. The corset is a symbol of the social expectations Cath is forced into by her parents. Jest’s recognition of the corset as a harmful constraint upon Cath symbolizes his ability to recognize her deep unhappiness in her environment and indicates his ability to free her from it. Jest’s role in doing this persists throughout the narrative, as in Chapter 21, when he praises Cath’s passion for baking and says she is “extra beautiful when [she talks] about baking” (180). His support for her dreams indicates that Jest recognizes and encourages Cath’s true self, a stark contrast from other figures in Cath’s life.

While Jest’s encouragement of Cath’s true self demonstrates the constructive side of love, Cath and Jest’s relationship is also a vehicle for demonstrating love’s destructive potential. Cath’s lemon-tree dream in Chapter 1 foreshadows this. In the dream, a figure with lemon-yellow eyes beckons Cath with the sense of having taken something from her; when Cath first meets Jest in the King’s garden in Chapter 7, she notices that his eyes are the color of “lemons hanging heavy on their boughs” (51), suggesting he is the one she dreamed of. Cath’s dream then foreshadows the trajectory of their relationship and hints at the irony of Jest “stealing” something from Cath. Jest was sent to Hearts to steal Cath’s heart, and he does end up doing so, but not literally; Cath figuratively “gives” him her heart by falling in love with him. Metaphorically, Cath’s dream foreshadows the fate of their relationship—once she has given Jest her heart, she cannot get it back, because Cath closes off her heart after Jest’s death. Cath’s deep love for Jest and resulting grief at his loss festers into bloodlust and desire for revenge, demonstrating how love can also motivate destructive choices.

With his death in Chapter 47, Jest becomes the archetypal martyr, the fate prophesied for him by the Three Sisters. His innocent death also marks the death of Cath’s better self, as her grief causes her to devolve into hatred and emptiness. Because Jest was the character who most brought out Cath’s true self, his death symbolizes the death of Cath’s own innocence, catalyzing her self-destructive transformation into the Queen of Hearts.

Hatta is a close friend of Jest’s. He owns a hat shop and crafts hats made of magical materials that encourage hidden qualities in the wearer. Hatta’s father was a hatter as well, but he died by suicide when Hatta was very young. After this, Hatta found his way to Chess, where he met Jest and was introduced into the White Queen’s service. Since then, Hatta has been the Queen’s hatmaker and has collected materials to create his magical hats from across Chess and Hearts alike. In the course of his travels, Hatta also became the one responsible for the creation of the Jabberwock: It was Hatta who scattered pumpkin seeds from Chess in Peter’s patch; these seeds grew into the cursed pumpkins that Lady Peter consumed.

Hatta’s character first establishes the Escaping Fate theme (beyond the metatextual awareness of how Cath’s fate haunts the narrative). “Madness” is the inheritance lurking in Hatta’s family history, and he is motivated by the need to escape it. As with Cath’s character, the knowledge of Hatta’s transformation into the Mad Hatter haunts his character arc, but Hatta’s arc is compounded by his own awareness of it. In addition, Hatta’s character also questions the role of outside influence in affecting outcome. The role Hatta plays in the series of events leading to the climax—namely, the revelation that it was Hatta who first planted the pumpkin seeds, disregarding the possible consequences—examines the role of others in influencing outcome within the theme of escaping fate.

The foil Hatta shares with Cath also acts as a vehicle for this theme. Hatta’s attitude toward Cath runs hot and cold throughout the novel, and the reader doesn’t learn why until the very end: Like Cath, Hatta is in love with Jest. Hatta’s and Cath’s shared affection for Jest place them in competition; this positioning naturally encourages comparison. How Cath and Hatta react to their fates is one of the most significant aspects of their foil: both are desperate to escape their fates, yet neither does, and both face horrible consequences of their actions. The scene between Cath and Hatta in Chapter 52 particularly underscores their foil. There, the characters are wretched mirrors of each other, each laying the blame for their shared grief at the other’s feet, all the while moments away from declining fully into their prophesied destinies. However, Hatta ultimately does what Cath cannot—he accepts his culpability, and with it his fate: “‘I know it is [my fault], and I will pay for it with my sanity, just as the Sisters said’” (435). Like Cath, Hatta cannot outrun his destiny; however, his character arc suggests that the responsibility to determine fate does indeed rest in the individual’s hands.

Peter Peter is the owner of the pumpkin patch, and Lady Peter is his wife. At the beginning of the novel, Peter Peter has recently been knighted, following the landslide victory of his wife, Lady Peter, at the recent pumpkin eating contest. Readers later learn that Lady Peter, who often appears sickly, was transformed into the Jabberwock as a result of eating an excessive amount of tainted pumpkins at the contest. Readers are first introduced to Peter at the King’s ball, when he and his wife approach Cath and Mary Ann. Peter is “as intimidating as a troll [...] He had frizzing red hair that was in need of both a washing and a comb, and a brow currently stuck in a scowl,” while his wife has “a back that seemed permanently hunched—from work, not age, Cath could guess—parchment-white skin and stringy blonde hair” and appears perpetually ill (37). Peter is surly and uncouth, often reacting explosively to innocuous gestures from others, such as when Cath tries to purchase pumpkins from him in Chapter 24. At the beginning of the novel, Peter is also characterized as potentially abusive toward his wife, as he speaks to her sharply and forcibly drags her away from anything pumpkin-related. Peter’s suspicious and domineering behavior prompts the reader to perceive him as an antagonist.

Once the climax unveils Peter’s true motivations, however, it’s difficult to read him as such. Peter’s actions were motivated by his desperation to protect his wife; if he seemed possessive when vehemently denying Lady Peter pumpkin, it was only because he feared that any more would condemn her to her condition for good. While he allowed his wife to eat people as a Jabberwock, he did so only because he believed he could cure her. Peter’s motivations make up an important part of the Love as a Destructive Force theme.

Like Cath, Peter’s characterization communicates the Escaping Fate theme—and in more ways than one. Peter’s self-confirming bias toward others leads him to make unfounded assumptions. For example, Peter is hostile to the courtiers in Chapter 5 because he believes that they all look down on him; the reader isn’t given enough information to evaluate the veracity of this claim, but it is untrue on Cath’s part. Cath is polite to Peter and Lady Peter, only becoming disgruntled when Peter is incessantly rude to her. By proceeding from bad-faith assumptions, Peter provokes the attitudes he presumes in others. This is an early indication of how Peter seals his own fate, just as other characters do their own.

This negative outlook of Peter’s comes into play to devastating effect during the climax in Chapter 47. When Peter catches Cath in his pumpkin patch, she at first tries to reason with him and explain that she’s only come for Mary Ann, but Peter refuses to believe her. His subsequent attack on Cath instigates the climactic confrontation in which Lady Peter is killed. In the end, Peter’s arc, like Cath’s, Hatta’s, and Raven’s, interrogates individual responsibility for outcomes. If Peter were not proceeding from a self-confirming bias about others’ intentions, might he have listened to Cath and avoided the conflict that resulted in his wife’s death? Similarly, despite Hatta’s wrongful influence, Peter still chose to hide his wife’s condition and allow her to devour innocent people—if he had chosen differently then, might there have been a different outcome for Lady Peter as well?

The Three Sisters are not directly inspired by any characters in Carroll’s works but resemble the Three Fates of Greek mythology. The Sisters also recall a certain Greek sensibility of tragedy; the Sisters are like a chorus, prophesying the characters’ doom and tracking the characters’ progress through the story with knowledge of how their actions influence their fates. As such, they are personifications of the Escaping Fate theme.

The Sisters appear as very young children, all identical to each other: “She was ghostlike, not more than six years old, with white-silver hair that cascaded down her back and skin the color of milk thinned with water. Her eyes, in contrast, were coal black and far too big for her face” (366). They are ethereal beings, almost contradictions of themselves, for even though they seem to be children, they “carry the sadness of an old crone” (366). This characterization reinforces their role as personifications of Fate, as it conveys a sense of unfathomable knowledge beyond any of the other characters’ control or understanding.

The Sisters also have alternate forms wherein they don representative animal masks, which characterize the Sisters by way of their associated traits: the fox, sly; the owl, wise; and the raccoon, a trickster. This reinforces the association with a Greek chorus, as the masks connote a sense of performance or obscured identity and likewise enhance the mystery that surrounds the Sisters.

As personifications of Fate itself, the Sisters act as a passive driving force for the story. It is the Sisters who first tell the characters their fates in Chapter 43, motivating them all the more to avoid them; it is also the Sisters who literally bring about the eponymous heartlessness in Chapter 53 when they take Cath’s heart from her. While the narrative emphasizes each character’s role in bringing their respective fates to pass, the Sisters’ role in each circumstance makes them a background driving force—exactly as Fate would be.

Raven is Jest’s constant companion and fellow Rook from Chess. Although Raven prefers his raven form, as a human he wears a black hooded robe and carries a curved axe, remnants from his time as the White Queen’s executioner. Cath first encounters Raven when she meets Jest in the King’s rose garden in Chapter 6; she glimpses Raven in his true form before she passes out but does not realize it’s him until Chapter 47, when she sees Raven in his human form for the first time.

Raven’s symbolism both as a raven and as an executioner foreshadow his role at the end of the novel. Ravens symbolize death or ill omens; the foreboding mood established by Raven’s executioner form reinforces this. Cath takes Raven as a literal symbol of death because of the Sisters’ prophecy, wherein Raven is the “murderer,” and accordingly she deliberately separates him from Jest. Like Cath and Hatta, Raven does not escape his fate, and his character arc reinforces the Escaping Fate theme by questioning to what degree he influenced his own destiny. Raven’s fate was prescribed for him at the beginning of the novel, by virtue of the symbolism encoded by his dual forms; ultimately, however, like Cath and Hatta, Raven’s own choices determine his fate. Raven chooses to accept his appointment as Cath’s executioner in Chapter 54, and as he swings the axe down on Peter’s neck, he brings the Sisters’ prophecies to completion.

Mary Ann is Cath’s best friend and maid. She shares Cath’s dream to open a bakery but is more practical. Cath calls Mary Ann her “brilliant, oh-so-logical business partner” (13), as Mary Ann helps the dreamier Cath think through the business logistics of opening a bakery.

In some ways, Mary Ann mirrors Jest. Like Jest, she supports Cath’s dreams and has Cath’s best interests in mind; she is someone else with whom Cath can be her true self. After Jest’s death, however, Mary Ann becomes the focus of Cath’s ire, and through this she mirrors Jest’s role as an “innocent death.” Cath uses Mary Ann as a scapegoat for Jest’s death because she needs something external to fault for the events at Peter’s patch. Mary Ann is not truly to blame for what happens, and certainly not for Jest’s murder, but like Jest, Mary Ann is punished for the actions of another. Cath kills her friendship with Mary Ann in the face of her grief for Jest, just as Peter killed Jest to compensate for his wife’s loss. This parallel reinforces the evil Cath has given into in the wake of losing her love; subsequently, Cath’s cold treatment of Mary Ann is a symbol of Cath’s descent. Mary Ann could have been someone to whom Cath turned for help processing her grief; instead, Cath rejects Mary Ann and isolates herself within her rage. The parallel of Mary Ann’s wrongfully denied friendship with Jest’s innocent death prompts the reader to consider how Cath actively chooses villainy.

The Marchioness’s primary objective in the novel is to see Cath married to the King for the status that it will grant their family. She is critical of Cath, urging her to fit the expectations of society and imposing her own desires on her daughter. The Marchioness urges Cath to ignore all her own desires and pursue a marriage proposal from the King, criticizing Cath when she feels Cath has fallen short of this goal. Cath’s relationship with her mother somewhat prefigures Cath’s own disintegration; Cath’s mother is “all cooing and delighted one moment and screaming at the top of her lungs the next. Despite her tiny stature, she had a booming voice and a particular glare that could make even a lion’s heart shrivel beneath it” (15). This description is nearly identical to how the Queen of Hearts is characterized in Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. This connection highlights the contrast between Cath’s character at the beginning of the novel and the conclusion of her arc at the end and suggests the Marchioness’s role in it.

In contrast to his wife, the Marquess is timid and less critical of Cath. He often defers to his wife and does not contradict her when she harshly criticizes Cath. Deep down, however, he shares his wife’s values and need for status: In chapter 38, he threatens to disown Cath if she embarrasses the family by marrying Jest instead of the King. This moment is shocking for Cath; even if she didn’t expect her father to oppose her mother, Cath at least expected that he would treat her more kindly than the Marchioness. This moment is a stark reminder to Cath of how little both her parents care for her true heart.

Collectively, Cath’s parents represent a failure to help Cath honor her true heart, reinforcing the theme of Being True to Your Own Heart. Just before her wedding to the King, Cath’s parents ask her if this will truly make her happy, and Cath responds, “How different everything could have been if you’d thought to ask me that before” (428). Up until this point, her parents have shown little regard for Cath’s feelings; to have them do so now is too little, too late. The suggestion that their negligence is partially culpable for the tragedies that followed signifies the grave consequences of ignoring others’ true feelings. Cath’s relationship with her parents indicates the importance of having one’s heart listened to; with her parents’ support, Cath might have been able to escape societal pressures and listen to her heart, avoiding the anger and grief that turned her into the Queen of Hearts.