The Maidens

“Something beautiful, something holy, had died. All that remained were the books he read, the clothes he wore, the things he touched. She could still smell him on them, still taste him on the tip of her tongue.” 

The first chapter introduces Mariana sitting on the floor, sorting through her deceased husband Sebastian’s personal items a year after his death. From the outset, the narrative highlights Mariana’s tendency to romanticize her relationship, referring to it as “beautiful” and “holy” and imagining that she can still smell and taste her husband on his things (6). In addition, Mariana seems paralyzed in the experience of loss, unable to move forward from what she has lost and into a new life.  

“It was unseasonably warm that Monday evening. Even though it was early October, the Indian summer prevailed, like an obstinate party guest, refusing to heed the hints from the dying leaves on the trees that it might be time to go.”

Throughout the novel, descriptions of the weather echo themes, motifs, and characters—a technique called “pathetic fallacy.” In this instance, the “unseasonably warm” October day reflects Mariana’s unhealthy attachment to her romanticized memories of Sebastian. Summer stubbornly holds on despite its season having passed. Signaling characters’ moods and narrative themes through weather is also a characteristic feature of Gothic novels. In this sense, it demonstrates intertextuality: Michaelides situates his novel in a particular genre by using that genre’s techniques.

“She believed in the group, in these eight individuals sitting in a circle—she believed in the circle, and its power to heal. In her more fanciful moments, Mariana could be quite mystical about the power of circles: the circle in the sun, the moon, or the earth; the planets spinning through the heavens; the circle in a wheel; the dome of a church—or a wedding ring. Plato said the soul was a circle—which made sense to Mariana. Life was a circle too, wasn’t it?—from birth to death.” 

According to Plato, the circle is the most perfect geometrical form. His theory holds that perfection cannot exist in the physical world but only in the philosophic realm of thought.