The Dovekeepers

Doves symbolize peace, nurture, and divinity in the novel, and also form a key motif. The novel draws its dove symbolism from Biblical and other ancient traditions. In the Bible, doves symbolize purity and serve as God’s messenger, such as in the story of Noah when a dove carries an olive leaf as a divine signal that the flood has receded from the earth (Genesis 8: 6-12). In other traditions, the dove is linked with the fertility goddess Ashtoreth, often referenced in the novel. This association with the goddess renders the women who tend the dovecotes—the titular “dovekeepers”—carriers of this feminine divine force.

Doves in the novel are often seen as prophetic: For instance, Shirah divines the future using the bones of doves. She performs the darkest magic she can by sacrificing a dove, since slaughtering a dove for magic is taboo. When Yael, Revka, and the children are awaiting their deaths in the kitchens, Yael sees doves flying at night. The unusual phenomenon is a sign that she must survive. Yael tells Revka they have “no time for death” and must flee (481). While the doves are flying because Shirah has released them from the dovecotes, Yael reads their flight as an omen for the safe flight of her group.

The text’s water symbolism gains special meaning in the context of its desert setting. Since Masada is located in an arid region at the edge of a desert, water is a divine grace because of its life-giving properties. When it rains in Masada after Shirah’s summoning, Revka notes that the rain has every color in it. The rain is so powerful an ingredient that it completes the charm Shirah has prepared for Revka’s grandsons, restoring speech to them. Thus, water becomes a symbol of healing and renewal.

Shirah is also closely associated with water. Shirah’s mother tells her early on that her element is water. Shirah has a vision of a large fish in the Nile, and from that point on, is drawn to water bodies, such as the well at Jerusalem and the cistern at Masada. This affiliation emphasizes her own magical, life-giving qualities. Since water saves Yael and the others during the siege when she hides in Shirah’s cistern, it is protective like a mother.

In the end, Yael chooses to settle in Alexandria, a fertile land on the banks of a river because she has aligned herself with Shirah and her feminine power. Yael and Yonah float a candle on a lotus pad in the Nile to symbolize their union with their mothers and their stories, flowing continuously, like a river.