77 pages • 2 hours read
Erin MorgensternThe Night Circus
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2011A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Themes
The Passage of Time
Time plays a somewhat complicated role in the novel, especially in terms of how it influences the lives of the novel’s various characters. Except for Widget and Poppet, all of the characters in the novel are protected from the passing of time due to the various magical spells that have been cast around the circus. However, while time, in terms of aging, remains frozen for most of the characters, time is also shown to be a pressing force, one which serves to remind Celia and Marco of their impending duel. Still, much of the novel takes place in what seems to be a dream world in which time does not seem to move. At the conclusion of the novel, Widget suggests that the novel itself is an allegory for the nature of time and its passing, stating that “Time has altered and condensed their nuances, made them more than story, greater than the sums of their parts. But that requires time. The truest tales require time and familiarity to become what they are” (494). In fact, when Widget starts to retell the events of the novel to the Man in Grey, the cyclical nature of time is hinted at, suggesting, perhaps, that all the events that transpired are destined to be repeated. Furthermore, the manner in which the novel moves through time, refusing to follow a linear, chronological order of events, further suggests that time is arbitrary and that the past, present, and future are intertwined with each other.
Good Versus Evil
In the novel, evil appears only in the actions of the Man in Grey and Prospero. Both men seem to hold no respect for human life; they care only for their competition, not for any lives lost in the process. While Celia and Marco are set up to be enemies, there is no real sense of a moral conflict between the two. Neither character, despite the dubious nature of some of their actions, is presented as being entirely pure or entirely wicked. The reader is never asked to side with one character over the other. In fact, the novel seems to celebrate the way in which love overpowers Celia and Marco’s rivalry, suggesting that love is able to overcome the division between good and evil. In the novel, ultimate “good” is symbolized by love, for Celia and Marco are able to escape their wicked fate by sacrificing themselves for each other. Interestingly, given that Celia and Marco have sacrificed their physical selves using the dark force of magic (which, throughout the novel, is presented as being innately evil in its operation), the novel ends ambivalently; good has not fully overcome the forces of evil. The dark force of magic has been used to achieve a higher purpose: for Celia and Marco to live together for eternity and for the Night Circus to be preserved. The novel seems to suggest that there is no such thing as absolute goodness or absolute evil, that the two forces must be negotiated in order to attain peace and harmony.
Free Will
From the time they are children, Celia and Marco are caught up in an elaborate plot that forces them, against their will, to engage each other in a magical duel to the death. Due to the magical interventions of their respective mentors, Celia and Marco are unable to avoid the duel; hence they are robbed of their free will. They are constantly monitored and manipulated by their mentors; to even consider escaping from the duel and running away causes both of them terrible pain. Both of them exist, then, as virtual prisoners, bond to a destiny decided by other parties and unable to make decisions for themselves. Even when they fall in love with each other, Celia and Marco find that they are unable to escape from their impending duel and pursue a life together. It is not only Celia and Marco who lack free will. All of the circus performers are bound to the circus through a magical spell. However, a number of characters are able to gain some measure of freedom: for example, Poppet is able to resist the destruction of the circus by encouraging Bailey to take ownership of it. While Celia and Marco are destined to engage in a duel against each other, they are able to devise away to escape their destiny and assert their own autonomy of their lives.
