74 pages • 2 hours read
Victoria AveyardRed Queen
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2015A 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.
Chapters 3-5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 3 Summary
The war between Lakeland and Norta (where Mare lives) started over land and has been going on for almost 100 years. The Lakelanders want access to Norta’s mills, and Norta needs better farmlands.
Unwilling to let Kilorn be lost to the war, Mare suggests they use the black market trade in town to be smuggled to safety. Kilorn agrees it’s worth a try, and Mare visits her contact in the market, Will Whistle.
Will introduces Mare to Farley, a member of the Scarlet Guard rebel force of Reds. Farley agrees to smuggle Mare and Kilorn to safety, but it will cost 1000 crowns for each of them, due in two days. Mare accepts the agreement, reeling with the knowledge she has less than two days to “accumulate more money than I have stolen in my entire life” (25).
At home, Mare lies awake, wracking her brain for a way to pay the fee. Gisa shifts in her sleep, and Mare realizes her sister can help. The next day, disguised as a merchant, Mare accompanies Gisa to the summer palace, a massive city surrounded by a wall of impregnable “diamondglass.” Inside, the gleaming palace is at the center of a bustling marketplace where Reds. Mare walks Gisa to the shop where she works to keep up appearances. Gisa goes inside while Mare watches, “wishing for all the world [she] could go with her” (32).
Chapter 4 Summary
Mare wanders around the city, taking the lay of the land. While she’s looking around a pub, a news broadcast comes on the screens. The capital was bombed earlier that morning. There were no casualties, and a terrorist group called the Scarlet Guard is taking responsibility for the attack. Mare doesn’t believe it until Farley appears on the screen and announces the Scarlet Guard will bring the fight to the Silvers’ homes until they recognize Reds as their equals, threatening that Reds will “rise up, Red as the dawn” (36).
Chaos breaks out in the city as Silvers round up Reds and demand answers, torturing some. Mare nearly drowns in a fountain manipulated by a Silver, but Gisa saves her. As they run for the city gate, Mare admits she didn’t have time to steal anything. Gisa tries to pick a passing Silver’s pocket, but she is caught. As punishment, a guard holds her down and slams his gun against her fingers, “shattering the bones in her sewing hand” (41).
Chapter 5 Summary
After delivering Gisa home, Mare runs away, too afraid to face her parents or Kilorn. She settles in the shadows by a tavern along the road outside of town and pickpockets drunken patrons as they exit for the next several hours. Finally, she decides to take from only one more patron—a boy a year or two older than her—who catches her. Rather than reporting her, he gives her a coin worth one crown. Defensive, Mare asks why.
The boy introduces himself as Cal and walks Mare partway home. On the way, they discuss the riots, and Mare breaks down, telling him her entire situation. He gives her another coin before disappearing into the night. At home, the power is out and Mare’s dad is fiddling with the electrical box. She tries to help, gets pricked by a wire, and the lights come back on. Unable to settle down, she reads her brother’s old letters. They quote Farley’s words about the dawn rising, and Mare realizes her brother is a member of the Scarlet Guard.
Chapters 3-5 Analysis
These chapters introduce the Scarlet Guard and Cal, foreshadowing Mare’s involvement with the rebels and Silvers, respectively. The bombing in Chapter 4 shows that some Reds are actively strategizing. While many keep their heads down to avoid punishment, others work to thwart their oppressors.
Cal is the second of Mare’s love interests and represents everything Mare wishes for. Cal’s presence foreshadows two things. First, the coins he gives away easily hints that he is a Silver and a prince. Second, being among Reds foreshadows his fall from power and how he ends up a prisoner of the Guard at the end of the book.
In these chapters, Mare doesn’t yet know she possesses the power to control electricity. The incident in Chapter 5 shows her using the power without realizing it. She attributes the power coming on to a fluke. Finding the Scarlet Guard’s mantra in Shade’s letters foreshadows Mare becoming a member of the Guard and the fact that her brother has powers like hers and is alive at the end of the book. The knowledge that her brother joined the rebels may influence Mare’s decision to do so.
Chapters 3 and 4 show the differences between how Silvers and Reds live. The Summer Palace is a city of gleaming, impenetrable walls and luxury. Reds work while Silvers enjoy themselves, playing with their powers. The riot in Chapter 4 reveals their quick tempers. The moment a threat appears, they take it out on the nearest Reds, even though those Reds aren’t directly responsible for the bombing. It also shows that they are afraid. They live privileged lives, and they don’t know how to deal with a threat. Their panic manifests as a desperate desire to destroy the Reds that represent their fear.
Related Titles
By Victoria Aveyard
