The Phoenix Crown: A Novel

“Her voice fell into the room like sunshine, warm and full.”

This description of Gemma’s singing when meeting Alice for the first time establishes the importance of art in this novel as a source of healing and inspiration. The authors use a simile to compare the sound of her voice with the visual and tactile sensation of sunlight. Gemma is relieved she can still sing in this warm and beautiful way after losing all her money and not rehearsing for a while.

“The hallway was quiet and smelled of sandalwood and roses from the special incense Madam Ning used, the only kind she bought. Nothing but the best for Bai Meishen, the patron deity of prostitutes.”

This is Suling’s sensory experience of visiting the brothel that her mother’s friend runs. Ning appeals to a deity where she conducts her business, illustrating the centrality of work in her life. After Ning is killed, and Suling moves away from San Francisco, the scent of this “rose and sandalwood-infused incense” (314) in a shop makes her homesick.

“The loss she would soon face upon leaving Chinatown, her community, and San Francisco, her city.”

Here, Suling considers what she will lose when she leaves San Francisco to avoid her arranged marriage. This foreshadowing is somewhat ironic in that she will have to leave the city because of the earthquake. Moving will not be the choice that she believes it will be—she is forced to leave California by the destruction of Chinatown.

“Performers learned to make a home wherever they went. Of course, a home wasn’t the same as home.”

Traveling with the opera gives singers the skill of being comfortable in a variety of places, but at the cost of stability and security. These temporary homes are given the article “a” because they are transient. Without the article, “home” indicates a permanent, singular home—something many artists can only dream of.

“Nothing in this world is made convenient for women.”

This quote is ironic, given that Henry says it. Though he has the social awareness to recognize Sexism and the Intersectional Oppression of Women, he has no interest in trying to rectify these injustices. Instead, he uses them to his own advantage.

“Being a singer isn’t like being a dancer or an actress […] Voices mature later, and so do careers.”

Many arts are obsessed with youth. Dancers often have to retire at a young age because of injuries they sustain. In the early 1900s, dancers did not have much of a career on the stage after their mid-30s. However, singers are held to a different standard because the art they produce involves less movement. Voices can improve over time, while bodies fall apart.

“But a woman should always have something of her own that no one can touch.”

Again, Henry seems to have a grasp on feminist concepts, like economic freedom of women. However, this is just a narcissistic lie he tells Gemma to become her patron. This develops the theme of Class, Labor, and Gender, as the “something of her own” that Henry suggests every woman should have is—in his manipulative framing—something only a wealthy man like him can grant.

“Ever since coming to the octagon house she had been delirious, singing and singing and singing. Free as a bird.”

This quote develops the symbolism of birds in cages. Gemma, a songbird, feels free in Henry’s house, at first. She is able to hone her craft. However, the house turns out to be a cage where Henry tries to kill her.

“Nonstop rehearsal was the fastest way in the world to make friends.”

This passage develops the centrality of art as means of connection in this novel. George and Gemma, both musicians, quickly become friends because they have daily rehearsals together. Here, the authors describe the foundation of a friendship that blooms into a romance and, eventually, marriage.

“Hard would have been the word she chose, once she saw those dark eyes drop their studied blankness and suddenly blaze like a phoenix.”

Here, the authors describe Gemma’s perception of Suling, thereby developing Suling’s character. They use a simile for her eyes that references the title of the novel and the myth of the phoenix rising from the ash. She has a fiery power, one that can be reborn, inside of her.

“You didn’t make me […] And you don’t own me, either.”

Gemma thinks this about Henry after she performs a role in Carmen that he paid for her to get. After this payment, as well as his other monetary support of her rehearsals, Henry behaves like he owns her and created her. His possessiveness demonstrates a relationship between Class, Labor, and Gender, as Gemma’s status as a woman in a patriarchal society, as well as her need for income and stability, makes her vulnerable to Henry’s predatory behavior.

“There’s an invisible thread of red silk […] the gods tie to the fingers of two people whose destinies are meant to be joined. The thread brings them together eventually, no matter how far apart they are.”

This is something that Suling’s mother, Ming Lee, said to her before she died. Her acceptance of other lesbians leads Suling to believe that mother would accept Reggie as another daughter. Suling puts the ring that Reggie gives her on a “red silk cord” (45) and wears it like that until Suling rescues Reggie from the asylum. The cord is a physical representation of the metaphorical thread her mother describes.

“There were so many great songs for sopranos, Gemma thought—yet so few of them were angry.”

This is the beginning of the authors’ ekphrastic description of Gemma singing an angry song: Mozart’s “Queen of the Night.” Here, the role of art is that it allows her to convey her anger in a beautiful and, relatively safe, way. When she does directly confront Henry, it leads to violence, but in this moment, she can pour her feelings into her singing. She can self-soothe, temporarily, while impressing her audience.

“Verdi […] ‘The Requiem’ […] Goodness, that’s quite apt.”

This operatic allusion is made while Alice and Gemma climb a ruined staircase in the California Academy of Sciences. Gemma sings this song, and not only names it for Alice, but also translates some of the lyrics, such as “Deliver me, Lord” (231). Alice remarks how fitting Gemma’s choice is for their current situation, developing the theme of The Relationship Between Art and Trauma.

“Alice finally stopped scribbling, and the four women simply gathered around the table and gazed in wonder. For a brief time they forgot about the burning city, forgot the horror they had endured. Stopped thinking about the hardships yet to come. Such beauty and grace amid so much destruction. Such balm for their tired souls.”

In this passage, the natural beauty of the Queen of the Night flower in bloom causes Gemma, Alice, Suling, and Reggie to feel a sense of awe. Its beauty is a momentary escape and comfort. This is the moment when the flower becomes a symbol of the bond between the women.

“Because the music, every time it fools me. I love being fooled.”

Here, Caruso talks to Gemma about Carmen. He describes his suspension of disbelief when singing his part in the opera, immersing himself in its fictional world. The artists, as well as the audience, can escape into the music and be emotionally moved by it.

“Her fingers, covered in glass cuts and soot, moved painfully over the soured piano keys, but she struck up Mozart’s ‘Laudate Dominum,’ seeing a tear slip down the cheek of the man with the bandaged head. Maybe she was as dim as her bird, singing when the world was burning down around her ears, but she couldn’t do anything else. She was a singer. So she sang.”

Here, Gemma’s singing comforts the residents of San Francisco after the natural disaster. The beauty of her singing causes her diverse audience to weep, evidence of The Relationship Between Art and Trauma. She turns to her art in times of crisis because she knows no other way, and it helps others as well as herself.

“It wasn’t enough for a woman to be talented, clever, or good. That wouldn’t save her.”

After being traumatized by the earthquake and fire, Alice retreats into remote areas around Tahoe. There, she hears a girl say that her mother taught her that intelligence and a strong work ethic are negative qualities in a girl. This upsets Alice, knowing that Henry—and other men like him—are out there. Women have to survive the violent actions of these men, as well as learn what men learn.

“All you could do, living with pain, was live with it, as best you could.”

After leaving San Francisco, Gemma’s migraines worsen, which is likely a response to the trauma she has endured. This quote highlights what it is like to live with chronic illness, and the need for intersectional feminism to help people who are discriminated against because of their disability and their gender.

“Henry Thornton had reared his head and it was like they all froze in response, each suspended in their own nightmare like insects in amber.”

After seeing her friends for the first time in several years, Gemma is shaken by their reactions to the discovery of Henry’s true identity. The authors use a simile that compares the women’s trauma response to an insect stuck in amber. This literary device helps the reader understand their emotional state.

“Not even bothering to clear her throat, Gemma sang the opening vocalise from the “Bell Song” in Lakme, her voice rich and thrilling, the notes pouring out effortlessly.”

Gemma uses her artistic talent to get into the Poiret party. This echoes how Suling uses the dragon robe to get into the party, illustrating one of the novel’s central ideas about Class, Labor, and Gender: Art is a form of labor that—at least temporarily—can allow the laborer to transcend class boundaries.

“Gemma could feel something stoking between the three of them, rising higher and hotter like the torches flaming in their dragon-mouthed brackets.”

This passage develops the symbolism of fire. The women are able to use fire to their advantage to force Henry to confess his crimes. This moment subtly alludes to mythological examples of women taking violent revenge on men, such as in the Bacchae. However, rather than murder Henry, the women rely on the justice system for their revenge.

“‘Your Queen of the Night is going to bloom!’ They gathered around the table, and for just an instant, memory flooded Suling’s senses. She was them all again in a San Francisco boardinghouse, four women who had come through earthquake and fire, pausing for a moment of peace as a white flower opened and softened the smoky air with its honeyed scent, a fragrance richer, deeper, more intoxicating than any rose or jasmine.”

This quote is the final line of Act II. Five years after they first witnessed a Queen of the Night flower bloom, they witness one of its clippings bloom. The sensory details make this emotionally freighted moment more vivid. Like the flower, the bond between the women has survived and bloomed.