81 pages • 2 hours read
Sarah J. MaasA Court of Wings and Ruin
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2017A 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 Ouroboros Mirror
The Ouroboros mirror symbolizes Feyre’s struggle for self-acceptance and her ultimate victory in learning to forgive and love herself. When the Bone Carver first requests the mirror, Feyre doesn’t understand the difficulty of acquiring it. Keir’s later explanation is similarly vague; he says only that “everyone who has attempted [to take it] has either gone mad or been broken beyond repair” (272). In moments of frustration, Feyre often returns to thoughts of the mirror and her desire for an easier solution. Though she tries to avoid it, she must ultimately overcome her fears to meet the mysterious challenge and discover that what she was so afraid of facing was herself.
Feyre’s arc from avoidance to acceptance of the mirror’s necessity parallels her character arc from doubting her own contributions to confidently saving the world. The Ouroboros symbol, a snake eating its own tail, appears in several ancient historical cultures and often symbolizes the cycle of life and death. Maas translates this imagery into the notion of an individual being their own cause of destruction or survival: Feyre’s inability to love herself—good and bad—prevents her from saving those she loves, and she only gains the confidence she needs to save her friends by first offering herself grace. As the Bone Carver tells Feyre, “It’s a rare person to face who they truly are and not run from it” (607); Feyre’s mastery of the mirror stems from her ability to reconcile her destructive and loving natures and to accept them as contradictory parts of a cohesive whole.
The Cauldron
The chthonic Cauldron symbolizes moral ambiguity as a weapon of mass destruction, but also a source of immortal life. Maas emphasizes this duality early in the novel, when Brannagh tells Feyre that the King will use the Cauldron for a greater purpose than transporting armies because “it is for remaking worlds” (82). Although Brannagh refers to the re-enslavement of humans and the “remaking” of a world unsafe for mortals, her declaration also points to the Cauldron’s role in the fundamental existence of their universe. The Cauldron can literally make or break their world.
The Cauldron is not a personified object; it is a sentient deity in the form of a magical artifact. As such, it has desires and motives and agency. Though the Cauldron is superficially associated with evil because of its use by the King of Hybern, Maas is careful not to characterize the Cauldron as purely good or bad. The Cauldron hates Nesta for stealing from it, but it loves Elain for her gentleness; this is seen when the Cauldron seeks out Nesta on the battlefield but retreats from Elain’s grief over her father. Instead, the Cauldron’s moral nature depends on the values and sympathies of those who use and observe it; it can be a tool of war, but it does not have a vested interest in the outcome of the war, only in its own survival. Feyre returns to the ambiguous nature of the Cauldron as she attempts to repair it, noting it allows things to be both “Made and un-Made,” that she becomes “both form and nothing” while connected to it, and that, despite its destructive power, “[a]ll life flowed from it” (664). The ultimate necessity of an object that, for most of the novel, Feyre sought to destroy, develops Maas’s exploration of the moral complexity of war and the impossibility of measuring one’s own actions against an objective ethical standard. Maas’s portrayal of the Cauldron suggests a broad equation of life and goodness versus death and evil but maintains that how those forces are used determines their ethical value, not some inherent nature.
Feyre’s Imaginary Paintings
Throughout the novel, Feyre imagines certain moments as paintings, which she sometimes gives evocative titles. This motif allows Maas to reveal narrative tensions and character dynamics through imagery while simultaneously reinforcing Feyre’s unique perspective on the world as an artist. In the Spring Court, Feyre’s imagined paintings—like “A Portrait of Snares and Baiting” (70)—clarify moments the reader may be uncertain whether or not Feyre is intentionally manipulating Tamlin. The portrait title emphasizes that Feyre is aware of the effect her goading has and that she has some greater purpose for doing it. This allows Maas to build suspense as Feyre’s plans unfold; her first-person narrator can hint at her plot without completely revealing it.
Later, Feyre’s imaginary paintings function as poetic imagers intended to create emotional resonance in important moments. When Lucien confronts Rhys upon arriving in Velaris, Feyre imagines the scene as a painting titled “The Clever Fox Stares Down Winged Death” (146); this title reveals how Feyre conceives of each character’s relative power. Feyre’s title reminds the reader that Lucien is crafty and brave but that he cannot overpower Rhys. Rhys and Lucien’s confrontation is a direct juxtaposition of Feyre’s past and present loyalties, and although Feyre still has feelings of friendship for Lucien, her allegiance is clear from this title. Maas employs a similar tactic when Feyre notices a tender moment between Elain, a “lovely fawn,” and Azriel, also called “Death” (611), before the final battle. Between their opposing natures, the “only bridge of connection” is Truth-Teller, Azriel’s dagger that Elain later uses to stab the King of Hybern (611). By emphasizing the contrasting imagery of this moment and the knife as a connection between them through figurative language, Maas makes Elain’s possession of Truth-Teller memorable for the reader and strengthens her foreshadowing that Elain will soon use the blade. Such “attention to detail” (270), as Azriel calls it, enables Maas to use Feyre’s artistic point of view to plant clues for the reader about which moments have more significance than they might assume.
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