A Court of Thorns and Roses: Chapters Twenty-Four through Forty-Five

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In A Court of Thorns and Roses, chapters twenty-four through forty-five are when the story takes a serious turn. Before going Under the Mountain, Feyre’s life at the Spring Court was one of contentment and eventual happiness. Now, she must fight in order to save herself and others around her in a trial that will leave her hollow. As the novel makes this switch, the discussion on gender and mental health will continue surrounding known characters and new ones, as well.

The idea of gender has always been a popular theme that many authors have explored through their works. The theme is very common in stories such as fairy tales as they are able to influence the minds of those who read them. In many cultures, “the classic gender roles in fairy tales [are] still enforced and not to be changed” which leads children to follow the conception that women are to be the damsel in distress and men are to be the knight in shining armor (Gurvich). However, as time has progressed, “Fairy tales are being retold and rewritten with stronger and more independent female characters. The idea of a damsel in distress is growing less and less popular as fairy tales are rewritten to appeal to modern audiences” (Gurvich). Maas has adapted this change in her writing by making Feyre “the prince” as she goes “to claim the one [she] love[s]” and agrees to go through the three trials to save him. As nobody in the court, especially Amarantha, believes that a tiny, human girl can save a high lord, she is repeatedly mocked and made a spectacle for entertainment. Feyre is dressed up in little to no clothes and painted in intricate designs then made to drink wine until she has no recollection of the night before over and over again, not only because they hate that she is human but because they find it easy to take advantage of a female. Even so, Feyre refuses to let this break her and continues to show Amarantha and the rest of her court that women are not weak, little dolls by defeating the trials set in front of her. However, Feyre does receive help through these trials from none other than Amarantha’s whore, Rhysand, in order to stay alive. Rhysand’s role in the story has become a more feminine one, bringing about his own reversal of gender, however terrible it may be. A whore, or a prostitute, is typically identified as a woman selling her body. Rhysand has become Amarantha’s mistress, a person to be at her beck and call while also providing sexual pleasure; Yet, he helps Feyre instead of remaining loyal, knowing it could potentially put him and his court in danger. However, he still keeps his hard exterior throughout the novel in order to keep up the masculine and deadly appearance that others expect from him. Feyre and Rhysand become similar in how their gender is reversed and the bias they face Under the Mountain.

The experiences that Feyre and Rhysand go through because of how their gender is perceived is one aspect that leads to their further decline in mental health. Throughout the entirety of being Under the Mountain, Tamlin, Rhysand, and Feyre are tortured, put through impossible situations, and forced to make choices that will impact them in the long run. While the effects of these experiences are explored in the next novel, A Court of Mist and Fury, it is important that the incidents are discussed to better understand them. Firstly, Tamlin has been dealing with this situation for a while which has severely increased his depression as seen earlier in the novel. He has been struggling to find a way to save his people and now, that he loves Feyre, he sends his one hope back to the human realm in order to prevent her impending death, dooming him and his people. Feyre, no matter how much she did not want to leave, accepts this as she says, “I would not become a burden to him. I would not become another weight pressing upon his shoulders” (Maas 251). Later on, Feyre comes to her senses and travels to rescue him, there Tamlin is forced to watch many events play out, the first being the Attor and other lesser fae beating Feyre and hearing her “screaming in agony” before passing out (Maas 303). Later, he watches Lucien get tortured for information and Feyre barely pass her challenges without dying. Tamlin is forced to show no emotion or response to anyone as he knows what Amarantha could do in retaliation after she took Lucien’s eye as punishment by “carv[ing] it out with her own fingernail” and sent him back in such a state that “the high lord vomited when he saw his friend” (Maas 282). The only time Tamlin ever breaks this act is when he pulls Feyre into a closet and tries to have sex with her as “[they] both knew what tomorrow would bring” until Rhysand interrupts them (Maas 377). After this, any hope Tamlin had at leaving was shattered as he was forced to watch “something forever crack” in Feyre’s spine from Amarantha’s magic (Maas 403). While Feyre is resurrected, when a person “experienced, witnessed, or [is] confronted with an event or events that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat to the physical integrity of self or others” it fits the criteria for PTSD to be developed (Good and Hinton 17). This situation eventually brings about delayed symptoms that will be discussed further in A Court of Mist and Fury after Tamlin’s numbness recedes.

Rhysand’s experience with trauma stems from the sexual assault he experiences every day while Under the Mountain. When it comes to sexual assault, men as victims are typically looked over when research has shown “that 1% to 4% of American men experience sexual assault in adulthood and 1% to 11% experience sexual assault in their lifetime (Turchik et al. 133). For almost fifty years, Rhysand has experienced sexual and mental abuse in order to protect his court. He is continuously put down by others around him and called Amarantha’s Whore because of his position by her side; However, even whores give consent to what is happening to them. Rhysand knew he was going to be trapped and tortured and made the choice to give himself up to her in order to protect his friends and his people. When Rhysand and Feyre have a discussion about his court falling and Feyre is given a glimpse into the sadness that consumes him. However, he quickly covers it up by saying, “What I do or have done for my Court is none of your concern” (Maas 355). This quote demonstrates how deeply he cares for his court and the people who live in it as he will do anything to protect them, even sell himself into sexual slavery. Undesired sexual contact will mentally affect anyone but for fifty years builds an extreme amount of emotional trauma. Rhysand tells himself repeatedly that any arousal coming from him is just his body reacting in order to get through the moments. This trauma stays with him throughout the entire series and we eventually see him battle depression with the help of Feyre.

Feyre’s mental health continues to decline as the novel progresses. Earlier, she dealt with trauma from her experiences in the village and the killing of Andras, which bring some PTSD symptoms such as “dreams of the event” that become recurring during her time at the Spring Court (Good and Hinton 17). Now, Feyre is living through an event that is bound to bring major PTSD into her life. After finding out about the curse and that Tamlin had been taken, Feyre races Under the Mountain in order to save him. Here, she is met with “the mangled corpse” of Clare Beddor, the girl whose name Feyre gave up instead of her own, who is “nailed high on the wall,” burned, whipped, and broken (Maas 299). Feyre thinks to herself, “I had as good as killed Clare” just as she had killed Andras, making in her mind two lives lost because of her (Maas 299). After seeing this, Feyre is beaten and thrown in a cell until her trials are to start on the night of the full moon. During the first trial, Feyre must hunt and kill a giant worm with “an enormous mouth filled with ring after ring of razor-sharp teeth” that “relies on its scent to see” (Maas 319, 324). After finishing this task, Feyre is sent back to her cell with her arm in a state that would kill her if the bleeding did not stop, leaving Feyre with nothing left but to accept Rhysand's offer. He heals her arm in exchange for her living with him one week every month for the rest of her life and leaves a permanent tattoo on her arm, a custom in the Night Court. Feyre accepts because she knows she has to live in order to save Tamlin and she cannot do that without Rhysand. She is willing to live with the consequences in order to protect those that she loves even though in the end she still dies. After finishing the trials, Amarantha becomes hysterical and states the flaw in their deal by saying, “you assumed that when I said instantaneous freedom regarding the riddle, it applied to the trials, too, didn’t you” and turns her magic on Feyre to kill her (Maas 399). As Feyre’s body is being broken, Rhysand screams her name and fights to free her, while Tamlin does nothing but beg. As Feyre dies, she sees herself and the others through Rhysand’s eyes and watches as the high lords bring her back to life as a high fae. While her body is now changed, her heart remains the same and Rhysand tells her, “be glad of your human heart, Feyre. Pity those who don’t feel anything at all” (Maas 414). Maas’s use of resurrection is an interesting device to use for the series as it brings about changes in a person and gives them a means, such as powers, to battle whatever is to come. However, these events and changes Feyre goes through impact her in such a way that she has to crawl back out of the darkness before she can step into the light.

Throughout the final part of the novel, Feyre’s reversal of gender and the strength she contains continues to be discussed. Another form of gender reversal was introduced through Rhysand’s character and the abuse he experiences. The mental health of the characters is discussed again as Tamlin, Rhysand, and Feyre live through traumatic events that will impact their lives and decisions for the rest of the series. As we dive into the next novel, the effects of these events will be discussed more through the changes in the characters and the changes in economic structure as Prythian focuses on moving forward.

Work Cited

Good, Byron J., and Devon E. Hinton. “Introduction: Culture, Trauma, and PTSD.” Culture and PTSD: Trauma in Global and Historical Perspective, edited by Byron J. Good and Devon E. Hinton, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016, pp. 3–49. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt18s318s.3.

Gurvich, Abigail. “Gender Roles as Taught by Fairy Tales.” Hawksites, 2019, https://hawksites.newpaltz.edu/agurvicheng170/major-project/.

Maas, Sarah J. A Court of Thorns and Roses. Bloomsbury, 2015.

Turchik, Jessica A., et al. “An Examination of the Gender Inclusiveness of Current Theories of Sexual Violence in Adulthood: Recognizing Male Victims, Female Perpetrators, and Same-Sex Violence.” Trauma, Violence & Abuse, vol. 17, no. 2, 2016, pp. 133–48. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/26638391.