Spark of the Everflame

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Chapter 9

Chapters 10-19

Chapters 20-25

Chapter 26-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

The Voice

The voice that Diem hears in her head throughout the novel is symbolic of her true self, which has been suppressed for many years. After she stops taking the flameroot powder, the voice becomes clearer and more difficult to resist, and it almost always advises her to fight against the restrictions that others attempt to impose upon her. At times, Diem relies on the voice to deliver her from difficult situations, and it is clear that the voice helps her access her inner courage and rebellious heart. When the voice tells her to fight during her encounter with the wolf, for example, she is able to use her magic to save herself. The voice also helps her stand up to Prince Luther and free the guards from the armory.

At other times, however, Diem fears the voice because she thinks it will encourage her to harm others. She sees it as a foreign force inside of her that is “becom[ing] something destructive […] [and] deadly” (126), and she fears that it will prove ruinous to the safety of her loved ones. As long as she regards the voice as a negative force, she lives in conflict with it. Therefore, the voice is designed to show that ignoring or dishonoring one’s true spirit can have negative psychological effects. Indeed, the more that Diem persists in demonizing her own inner voice, the stronger and more violent it becomes. Soon, she experiences the voice as a fiery internal rage that she is desperate to escape. In Chapter 31, for example, she calls the voice “that wretched angry thing” that paces “in frenzied strides, wringing its hands, clawing at the inside of [her] skin, shrieking to be unleashed” (378). This violent, volatile language equates the voice to a caged animal, and Cole uses this metaphor to capture Diem’s frustration at her lack of choice or free expression. She feels wild and dangerous because she is forcing herself to suppress her true instincts, and once she gives in to the voice, she finally finds peace.

Flameroot Powder

The flameroot powder is symbolic of ignorance, lies, and deception. Diem’s mother forces her to take the powder for years in order to disguise her true identity as a Descended. The powder quashes her magical powers even as her parents isolate Diem herself from the world of the Descended. When Diem takes the powder, it makes her “brain fuzzy” and her “emotions dull” (25). While the powder does alleviate the alleged hallucinations and delusions that she experienced as a child, it also divorces her from reality and keeps her from engaging with her true emotions, and it is therefore a form of oppression. Once she stops taking the powder, she faces an emotional and psychological awakening, experiencing “visions” and “feelings [that she can’t] explain” (107). She also starts to believe that she is “doing things [she] shouldn’t be able to do” (107). In reality, Diem is simply learning about herself and her world as she comes of age. The powder has masked her real identity and ensnared her in a protracted version of childhood. In this light, Diem’s decision to throw all the flameroot powder into the sea symbolizes her decisive bid for freedom and greater self-awareness. She is casting away the foolishness of childhood and refusing to live in ignorance. Although she sometimes longs for the relative calm and simplicity that the powder offered her, this is nothing more than a nostalgic longing for the innocence of childhood.

Diem’s Cottage

Diem’s cottage represents entrapment. At the novel’s start, she sees her home as her safe place and refuge. Over time, however, Diem begins to feel more confined at the house because living here limits her understanding of the world, and she has no opportunity to find ways to enrich her perspective. Her shifting attitude toward the cottage therefore mirrors the evolution of her personal growth.

The house’s physical attributes exude a sense of its limitations, as it is described as “a simple little thing, tucked away on a marshy inlet that meander[s] west from the sea at the center of the atoll of Emarion” (28). Andrei built it as a way to avoid “the prying eyes of town” (28). Its physical location is set apart from the rest of the village and the city beyond, illustrating Andrei and Auralie’s efforts to hide their daughter away. Indeed, the house’s separation from the larger mortal community estranges Diem from this social sphere and entraps her as she comes of age. By the end of the novel, the house feels suffocating to her because she has experienced the world beyond it and doesn’t want to be limited by this hidden domestic realm any longer.