50 pages • 1 hour read
The Amulet of Samarkand
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Cyclical Nature of Oppression
One of the main tensions in The Amulet of Samarkand is the coercive and exploitative power that magicians hold over spirits like Bartimaeus. In Stroud’s fantastical world, magicians are only as powerful as the spirits they can bind and enslave to their will. Though the author never elaborates as to why the British society of magicians (and, presumably, other such societies) view spirits with hostility, there is nevertheless a long-standing history of it, wherein magicians deliberately cultivate and inculcate a deep hatred for creatures of the Other Place as a matter of course.
Arthur’s teaching methods show how magicians instill disdain for spirits in their apprentices, perpetuating a cycle of hostility and coercion. In his first appearance in the book, Arthur speaks of spirits’ alleged wickedness: “Remember this. […] Demons are very wicked. They will hurt you if they can. Do you understand this?” (29). Arthur’s perspective on spirits encapsulates the justifying rhetoric employed by magicians for the cruel treatment they force upon spirits to extract their powers, but it also gestures to how this cruelty is necessarily inherited through tailored curriculums. Magicians’ use of the word “demon” linguistically vindicates the exploitation of spirits. “Demon,” after all, makes spirits seem inherently evil and thus absolves magicians of the violence, exploitation, forced incarceration, torture, and other painful methods they might employ to bend spirits to their will. Such commonly used terminology thus allows magicians to retain their overarching narrative of power, benevolence, and right to rule. Thus, even as a child apprentice, Nathaniel is corrected in how he speaks of demons: “‘What is the great secret?’ ‘Spirits, sir.’ ‘Demons, boy. Call ‘em what they are’” (67). Nathaniel, like most others, does not question this teaching. In fact, he is made to see a truth within the claim, given that his initial contact with spirits as a six-year-old is deliberately orchestrated to instill fear and hatred in him.
While Nathaniel knows of magicians who died at the hands of spirits, the narrative suggests that such actions aren’t surprising since spirits spend their millennia-long existences in bondage. If anything, it is the lack of empathy and denial of basic dignity that drive a mutual hatred in both humans and spirits alike. Despite magicians’ extensive knowledge of spirits and their different denominations, Nathaniel only speaks of Bartimaeus as a demon, which prompts the latter to make this comment: “‘I’ve been meaning to mention this for some time. I don’t like being called a demon. Got that?’ [Nathaniel] took a deep breath. ‘Fine.’ ‘Just so you know.’ ‘All right.’ ‘I’m a djinni.’ ‘Yes, all right’” (358). Nathaniel has, of course, known all along that Bartimaeus was a djinni, but his constant use of the term “demon” to speak of and to Bartimaeus is indicative of the trained perspective he’s received as a magician: He deliberately uses the wrong word to identify Bartimaeus, alienating Bartimaeus from his identity and rendering him, like all spirits under a magician’s control, a mere tool that a magician might use.
The Illusion of Power
Though much of the narrative’s conflict centers on magicians and their bound spirits, there are also multiple hints of systemic inequality and an inherently biased class system within human society. There is a stark delineation between magical and non-magical individuals, wherein magicians hold complete political and societal power within Great Britain (and presumably in other countries) by virtue of their magical power.
However, Arthur reveals that this social dynamic is predicated on a lie upheld by magicians:
Demons are the great secret. Common people know of their existence and know we commune with them—that is why they fear us so! But they do not realize the full truth, which is that all our power derives from demons. […] Our single great ability is to summon them and bend them to our will (67).
The truth that magicians hide, therefore, is that they themselves are not truly magical, making the demarcation between magicians and commoners false. It is never made clear whether there is a specific characteristic held by magicians that allows them to summon spirits; in fact, given that Stanley from the Resistance is able to detect magical objects and one of his colleagues is able to use the elemental sphere without either seemingly being magicians themselves, the novel implies that commoners, too, would be able to make use of demons’ magic if given the opportunity. Stroud’s society of magicians is nothing if not exclusive and secretive. From disconnecting prospective magicians from their parents as children to their monopoly over knowledge and heightened wealth, magicians are taught to cater to themselves only to prevent non-magicians from discovering the lie they’ve perpetuated to maintain their social power.
In truth, then, the only “power” magicians hold is the power to colonize or enslave demons. Because of this, magicians teach and perpetuate a propagandized narrative that paints them as benevolent and noble pillars of society, without whom the internal cohesion of the country would crumble. The narrative is so engrained within the fabric of society that even a non-magician like Nathaniel’s tutor, Mr. Purnell, exalts the singular need for magicians:
If the Empire is to be kept whole, a strong government must be in place, and strong means magicians. Imagine a country without them! It would be unthinkable: commoners would be in charge! We would slip into chaos, and invasion would quickly follow (61).
Beyond Mr. Purnell’s cognitive dissonance, where he wholeheartedly undermines his and his peers’ own worth, this passage exposes how far the magicians’ illusion of power reaches. Mr. Purnell’s assumption hinges national power, peace, livelihoods, and social order on magicians’ alleged magical power and their willingness to defend the country. In reality, however, the novel suggests that magicians maintain control over the country’s government to protect the secret that enables their elite status: that their power is made possible only by the perpetual enslavement of spirits from the Other Place.
Social Displacement and the Loss of Community
The circumstances that led to Nathaniel’s apprenticeship reveal a system specifically designed to promote identity erasure and conformity. To be a magician in Stroud’s London is effectively to be a product of social displacement in an environment that eradicates authentic human connection.
By design, the process of training magicians leaves pupils unmoored. Children are abandoned by their parents for financial gain and left with strangers whose task it is to rigorously train them to perpetuate a colonializing cycle of summoning and binding spirits. Coupled with the Naming ceremony that all but erases their birth name (for security purposes), a child apprentice loses all parental and familial connection. A ministry clerk tells Arthur when he comes to collect Nathaniel, “[H]is birth records have been removed and destroyed, sir, and he has been strictly instructed to forget his birth name and not reveal it to anyone. He is now officially unformed. You can start with him from scratch” (54). The use of the term “unformed” in this passage implies that Nathaniel can be molded and “formed” as Arthur sees fit without any of his former connections to his family or identity. Though Martha considers the practice cruel, there does not seem to be an alternative, as magicians are not allowed to have children of their own—allegedly to do away with “competing dynasties, family alliances [since] it all ends in blood feuds” (56). In practice, however, loyalty bonds between master and pupil, such as the one between Schyler and Simon, still effectively create feuds and violence.
Despite these loyalties, magicians must sacrifice affection, love, and care to maintain their power. Certainly, there is no love lost between Arthur and Nathaniel throughout his apprenticeship, but on multiple occasions, Stroud showcases how the apprenticeship process leads masters to prioritize their personal gain over their responsibilities to their charges. For example, Arthur fails to protect Nathaniel from Simon when he is 11, and later, he readily offers to trade Nathaniel for his own life when Simon is about to kill him: “The boy is a meddling fool; he must be silenced before he blabs. Kill him now, and the matter will be finished!” (297). Though Arthur has a duty to protect Nathaniel as his master, in both instances, he reveals that, much like the spirits Arthur summons, Nathaniel is entirely disposable if he does not serve to bolster Arthur’s reputation. The valuation of relationships also extends to his wife, evidenced by his routine dismissal of her. Such an environment makes Nathaniel’s relationship with Martha and Ms. Lutyens more meaningful to the boy, as the two are the only people with whom he is allowed to foster any kind of affection or retain a sense of self. With the loss of both women, Bartimaeus’s final words of advice to Nathaniel carry all the more weight: If Nathaniel is not careful, he will become the manufactured and conformed magician whom the British government hopes to gain.
Unlock all 50 pages of this Study GuidePlus, gain access to 8,800+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features:
