Ruthless Vows

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2023

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Memories and Dreams

Memories and dreams serve as motifs that develop the theme of What Is Versus What Could Have Been. There is a lot of overlap between memories and dreams throughout the novel, which suggests the extent to which the characters are fantasizing about what could have been rather than accepting what is—a practice that renders the past merely an exercise in fantasy. Iris, for example, notes early on “how seldom daydreams […] align[] with reality” (16). By daydreaming, Iris temporarily buries her anguish and sorrow beneath imaginings of what could have been.

In other cases, however, the relationship between dreams and memories points in the opposite direction: An apparent fantasy communicates a real past’s intractable presence. When Roman’s memories begin trickling back in his dreams, he suffers nightmares of his sister’s drowning. Rather than believe the horrible reality, Roman desperately hopes that it is merely a nightmare, reflecting that Del’s death was “a mistake that should never have happened. If it had happened at all” (53-54). Dacre capitalizes on Roman’s desire by telling Roman, “Sometimes your kind dreams of things you wish had happened. […] Your envisioning of a little sister is a simple expression of how much you long for family, to be known” (55). While dreams are often just as Dacre describes, the painfulness of Roman’s dream hints at its reality. Rather than wish fulfillment, his dreams are signs that he must confront his trauma, underscoring Pain’s Necessity to Healing.

Birds

Bird imagery is common in the novel and often associated with characters who embody traits associated with particular species—e.g., Marisol comparing Iris’s strength to that of an albatross. In this sense, the bird motif is connected to characters’ senses of personal identity, as evidenced by Iris’s response to Marisol gifting Iris her book on birds. Iris is moved to tears by the act, reflecting that the book “[feels] like something to tether her in the coming days, something to protect her as well as encourage her to keep going” (99). The gift becomes a reminder of Iris’s internal strength.

Bird imagery also closely corresponds to motifs of imprisonment and freedom. The novel repeatedly references birds kept in captivity, often linking their imprisonment to the plight of various characters. The goddess Enva, for example, is much like the nightingales kept captive when people wanted to study their song; musical in nature, Enva was kept prisoner by Dacre in the under realm before she sang him to sleep. Nightingales are also difficult to spot: “[T]hey keep to thick cover, and while their feathers might be unexciting, they have a repertoire of more than two hundred different phrases they can sing” (144). In this same way, Enva traverses Oath unnoticed because of her average appearance, which Iris herself overlooks quite often. In the Epilogue, Enva wonders if she could travel the world freely if she went below, to the realm that had “been a cage to her once, but now […] taunted her with freedom” (416). Here, Ross deploys bird imagery to underscore the power reversals that have occurred, as Enva looks to her former place of imprisonment for deliverance from another (the city of Oath).

Doors

Doors symbolize the interconnectedness of every person, deity, place, and thing within the world that the characters inhabit. Much as writing opens doorways for readers to experience other perspectives, the doorways throughout Ruthless Vows represent paths of connection.

This is not always obvious to the work’s characters. While Dacre can travel anywhere in the world through his underground passages, Roman ironically feels imprisoned in the under realm. When he first wakes, he’s kept in a chamber with no apparent door. When he first gets situated in his own room, he recognizes that “Shane [is] standing guard in the hallway” (41). However, Roman’s surroundings contain opportunities that he does not notice at first glance. Though Roman doesn’t believe that his initial chamber has a door, he eventually discovers that there is in fact an opening. While in Hawk Shire, Dacre shows Roman a normal wardrobe door that Roman opens to find coats. Yet when Dacre uses the silver key he wears around his neck, the door transforms into a passage to the under realm. In this way, doorways represent what is there but not always seen—a broader motif that also encompasses plot points such as Enva’s disguise as an ordinary woman. Likewise, the enchanted buildings in Oath serve a greater purpose that has always been overlooked.