Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2024

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-6

Chapters 7-12

Chapters 13-18

Chapters 19-25

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

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Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Emily’s Enchanted Cloak

The cloak Wendell enchants for Emily is a symbol for The Benefits of Accepting Help From Others. Throughout the novel, Emily struggles to accept critiques from others and often disregards their opinions in her leadership efforts. In the same way that she struggles with teamwork in an academic setting, she is well aware that she’ll face the same struggles—if not more—in a marriage with Wendell. Thus, his proposal remains unanswered. Marriages require compromise and teamwork, both of which are skills Emily does not possess. The enchantments embedded within the clock are representative of Wendell’s love for Emily and his desire to protect her, which eventually, in a roundabout way, exemplify the theme of reliance as it is not only imperative to group research expeditions, but to relationships as well.

When Emily asks Wendell how many protective enchantments he placed on her cloak, he replies: “You will never reach the end of them […] That many” (180). With Wendell’s affections starkly out in the open, Emily experiences increasingly numerous moments in which she’s forced, whether directly or indirectly, to rely on him. Wendell’s preoccupation with ensuring not only her safety, but that of her niece, Ariadne, illustrates the teamwork involved in relationships such as theirs. For the first time in her life, Emily is not the only person to look out for herself. She now has a person who loves her, which makes it a joint responsibility to ensure her safety because she’s not the only person who’ll be affected if something unfortunate happens to her.

Emily’s continued reliance on the cloak despite her initial reluctance illustrates the novel’s key theme of reliance on others. Despite her habit of rejecting others’ opinions in favor of her own, by the final chapters, Emily compromises with her coat instead of outright ignoring its suggestions. When it tugs at Emily in an effort to convince her not to enter Wendell’s step-mother’s castle, she tells it: “We must go this way […] Would you trust me?” (257). Rather than dismissing its worries and by going behind its back as she’s previously done with Rose, Ariadne, and Wendell, she gives it the respect it deserves by acknowledging its worries and placing her trust in it by fully expressing her plan before acting on it. While Emily still does what she wishes to do despite the warnings of the cloak, the difference lies in her decision to tell it her plan instead of enacting it in secret. Her dependence on the cloak to support her once knowing the truth represents the theme of reliance on others, which is an ever-present necessity for Emily in the novel.

Wendell’s Unpredictable Magic

Wendell’s unpredictable magic symbolizes Emily’s fear and indecisiveness about their relationship and the fate of his marriage proposal. Not only does Wendell have limits to his magic that Emily can’t fathom, but the poison’s affects make using it even more unpredictable than before. For Emily, who prefers certainty above all else, Wendell’s increasing unpredictability over the course of the novel only heightens her anxiety about accepting a life spent with him in his realm. This is exacerbated by the realization that the creatures of his kingdom and the magic of his realm are no different from Wendell himself. As Wendell mentions many times when Emily attempts to make sense of his realm through her knowledge of stories, “The stories are wrong” (37). If she cannot rely on her understanding of stories, which have aided her in every aspect of her research, Emily doesn’t know what she can rely on to survive.

The unpredictable magic that is released from Wendell during the novel leaves Emily rattled as she’s “used to seeing him use magic, but every now and again he does something that unsettles [her] on a fundamental level, enough to make [her] almost regret the series of events that brought [her] to dryadology” (52). The magic he exemplifies and the horrors they face while trying to locate the door to his realm throws everything Emily knows about the Folk into disarray. She faces contradiction after contradiction, which she’s unable to make proper sense of. Through it all, she trusts Wendell with her life—a fact that Dr. Farris Rose does not approve of, as he asks, “Do you know the wind?” when speaking of her tendency to trust Wendell (107). When Wendell uses his magic to heal Rose’s extensive injuries from the tree faun, Emily is surprised and terrified, once again, by the extent of Wendell’s power. She also experiences extreme guilt for underestimating the tree faun of Wendell’s kingdom even after Wendell’s several warnings. She thinks afterward: “Do you know the wind? Rose had asked. I had been so dismissive at the time! Now the memory of the words sent a shudder through me” (126). Emily only then begins to fully realize the scope of unpredictability that Wendell and the creatures of his realm embody—and subsequently wonders, for the first time, if surviving amongst them is beyond her capabilities.

Shadow and Orga

The characterization of Wendell’s and Emily’s pets, Shadow and Orca, symbolize the affection Wendell and Emily feel for one another. Shadow is a grim—a death hound—who glamours himself to look like a regular, albeit massive domesticated dog. Despite his intimidating stature and his terrifying faerie species, he is a steadfast and affectionate animal companion to Emily. Both Shadow and Wendell take on mortal appearances to exist amongst humans, but underneath their charming exteriors lurk the ever-present dangerous mannerisms of the Folk. As Shadow exemplifies when he sheds his dog glamour and accidentally attacks a local from St. Leisl, Wendell does the same when shedding his human disguise to defeat the gargoyles sent to assassinate him. Additionally, Shadow prefers lazing about and is endlessly fascinated by flowers. His preferences for comfort, homeliness, and simple pleasures mirror Wendell’s same preferences as an oíche sidhe. By mirroring Shadow’s character to Wendell’s through personality, behavior, and habits, Emily’s love for Shadow comes to symbolize her ability to love and trust Wendell the same way.

Likewise, Wendell’s cat, Orga, is described as significantly similar to Emily. As Wendell says to Emily, “I hope I will be able to introduce you. You will like each other, I think” (98). Emily is very openly not a cat person, as she mentions this many times throughout the novel. However, Wendell is not speaking about their ability to get along, but rather the similarities that exist between Orga and Emily. Wendell describes his cat as prickly in nature, yet she’s a creature he trusts with his life. The same is true of Emily, whom he calls contrary and constantly bickers with—all while continuously telling her that he trusts her more than anyone to find the door to his realm and save him from his step-mother’s poison. Unlike Emily and Shadow, Wendell makes the connection between his love for Orga and his love for Emily from the beginning; he all but explicitly states they’re similar. Even the emotionally-dense Emily picks up on the connections as she was “worrying more than [she] would ever admit to Wendell that the beast would hate [her] upon sight” (221). Wendell’s ability to get along with and relate to Shadow is a signifier of his ability to seamlessly integrate himself into Emily’s life if she accepts his proposal and Emily believes the same holds true about Orga. She worries that if there is a disconnect between her and Orga, Wendell might realize that his feelings for Emily are not what he believed them to be. However, while Orga is not the biggest fan of Emily, she reacts to her exactly as Emily would react to others, further exemplifying the similarities of their personalities and behaviors, which show that Wendell’s endlessly devoted affection to his cat is a mirror of what he feels for Emily.