A Court of Thorns and Roses: Chapters One through Twenty-Three

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A Court of Thorns and Roses is the first novel in the series which sets the path for the rest of the books and causes the readers to fall in love with the characters. Many readers, including myself, picked up this novel for the first time because it contains attributes that make it a Beauty and the Beast retelling. However, many readers do not know that it also derives from an anglo-Scottish ballad called “The Ballad of Tam Lin," where Tam Lin is saved from the Queen of the Faeries by his true love (“Tam Lin”). These two stories contribute to the overall plot of the novel, Yet there are themes such as trauma, gender roles, and morality that make the novel one of a kind. These themes contribute to the overall ideas of gender and mental health throughout the entire series.

In Joan W. Scott’s Gender and the Politics of History (qtd. in Filipowicz 3), she gives a wonderful description of gender as “a social category imposed on a sexed body.” Often, people are expected to act in a way that deems them acceptable in society which distinguishes gender as a social construct (Filipowicz 3). In A Court of Thorns and Roses, there are expectations to be met in both the moral realm and in Prythian that Feyre and other characters must meet. Within the human realm, Feyre is the epitome of a gender reversal as she becomes “the man of the house” once her father’s wealth is lost. She wears trousers in order to hunt and prepare the kills that “[she] only learned…thanks to the instruction of others” (Maas 10). To the world, Feyre’s father has failed because he can no longer take care of his children, therefore, losing his masculine role in the house. Feyre takes up this role and does everything in order to keep her family and herself fed and alive by hunting in the forest. She never received the gentle and high-born upbringing that her sisters had, making it easier for her to adapt to the life she was thrown into. In fact, in order to escape from her life, she throws herself into a purely physical relationship with Isaac Hale, a boy from the village. Meanwhile, her sisters, Nesta and Elain, are very money oriented and keep the noble mindset that they grew up with, making it difficult for them to adapt to the lower role they now have in society. When Nesta wishes to marry one of the men in the village and declares she is in love, Feyre shoots down the idea stating that “the day you want to marry someone worthy, I’ll march up to his house and hand you over. But you’re not going to marry Thomas” (Maas 18). Nesta makes her extreme distaste for the situation their life is in known through her insults to Feyre calling her “an ignorant peasant” and “a half-wild beast” (Maas 14,19). Their father scolds Feyre after saying, “let her keep this hope…Let her imagine a better life. A better world” (Maas 20). Yet, Feyre knows the truth and states, “There is no such thing” (Maas 20). To her, there is no concept of love for where they come from.

Nesta presents her sister as fitting the stereotypical peasant that she has learned to look down upon by their mother, who loved nothing but her husband and partying. Their mother neglected the girls' educations and did not hire a governess to teach them. Feyre’s eldest sisters who were able to read and write “deemed the village school beneath [them]” and did not teach her, leaving her scarcely able to read and knowing “enough to form letters” (Maas 113). Even with the treatment Feyre experiences growing up in her family, her dream life includes “[her] sisters comfortably married off, and a lifetime with [her] father, with enough food for [them] both and enough time to maybe paint a little” (Maas 79). This shows how little Feyre thinks of her own happiness demonstrating the misunderstanding that “suggests that it has become standard practice to equate feminism with the narcissistic pursuit of individual self-fulfillment” (Filipowicz 6). Instead, she works to do everything she can to protect and care for the ones she loves which includes her family and eventually Tamlin. Feyre’s reversal of gender does not fit into the social construct that has been established in the human realm for someone of her well-born status.

While Feyre’s reversal of gender is a downfall in the eyes of her family in the human realm, in the faerie realm of Prythian it is even more severe in the eyes of society. Prythian consists of seven courts: spring, summer, autumn, winter, dawn, day, and night. These courts are ruled by High Lords who are made of power where when more than one child is born “the strongest of them will inherit the title, not the eldest” (Maas 160). The faeries of Prythian look down on Feyre for being human, as before the war humans were kept as slaves. Feyre’s species is continuously thrown at her as an insult as she lives on the grounds of the Spring Court. One of her many “shortcomings” as Tamlin puts it when he spits out, “you aren’t what I had in mind for a human—believe me” (Maas 117-118). While this is one bias she faces, she also experiences gender bias, as well. There is an overall “lack of support for women’s lifestyle choices” that derives from the “gendered division of domestic labor and privilege” that is demonstrated between the characters of Feyre and Tamlin (Filipowicz 6). When Tamlin takes her from her family, Feyre refuses to conform to the ideal woman he wants her to be. She “pleads for [her] old clothes to be returned” when given a dress to wear and refuses to be obedient to the man who stole her from her family (Maas 55). While there are moments throughout the novel where Feyre and Tamlin get along, he goes back to this need for control which eventually leads to him biting her neck and saying “don’t ever disobey me again” (Maas 197). This makes Feyre angrier and more likely to retaliate as it is essentially him wishing to take away her free will but also makes her body react in a way where she has this burning need. Throughout the chapters, Feyre continues to fail at the gender role she is supposed to play in both the human realm and the realm of Prythian.

The roles of gender that appear in both societies are just one theme throughout the chapter of the first novel. Tamlin, Feyre, and other characters in A Court of Thorns and Roses suffer from depression, PTSD, and trauma that stem from their pasts and what is currently happening to them. Tamlin is the main character whose depression is seen within the first novel of the series as his family was murdered by an enemy court and he has been dealing with “the blight” for fifty years. He experiences symptoms of depression such as irritability, hopelessness, withdrawal from friends, and feelings of worthlessness and guilt (Moreh and O’Lawrence 289). Since he is a high fae, he has already lived for around 500 years; however, he is still seen as a man in his late twenties, meaning his life is just starting. A person’s depression can come “in many shapes or forms” and can “persist at a low level for months or even years” (Moreh and O’Lawrence 287). Tamlin’s depression has been at a low for years and even Lucien cannot get him out of it. He says, “there isn’t much time, and you’re just sulking and glowering. You’re not even trying to fake it anymore… back off while you seal our fates and ruin everything? I stayed with you out of hope, not to watch you stumble” (Maas 107). Lucien stayed in the spring court because he believed that Tamlin would be able to fix everything and now he is seeing how hopeless his friend is. When Tamlin meets Feyre he begins to have more hope for his situation but his happiness revolves around his need for her to love him back in order to save his people. Love is not something that comes easily to her outside of her family, which makes the situation even more vital for him. The events Tamlin went through and the symptoms he experiences are what make his depression known.

When it comes to PTSD, Lucien is the character who best represents this within the first book. PTSD or Posttraumatic stress disorder is, “a psychiatric disorder that may occur in people who have experienced or witnessed a traumatic event such as a natural disaster, a serious accident, a terrorist act, war/combat, or rape or who have been threatened with death, sexual violence or serious injury” which for Lucien is an act of violence from his past (“What is…). Feyre learns about Lucien’s past through her conversation with Tamlin which reveals that Lucien is “the youngest of seven brothers” who “see each other only as competition since the strongest of them will inherit the title, not the eldest” (Maas 160). After being forced by his brothers to watch his father execute the woman he loved, Lucien left the court but was chased by his brothers who “thought to eliminate one more contender to the High Lord’s crown” (Maas 161). This treatment from his family, along with the loss of his eye which Feyre does not know the cause of, Lucien suffers from a lot of trauma that results in him having PTSD which is triggered in situations like that of the lesser fae mutilation. When the victim is reminded of the trauma they went through, a fight or flight defense is activated which can lead to “palpitations, fear, and shortness of breath” (Good and Hinton 14). This is witnessed when Tamlin brings the injured faerie into the house as Lucien “kept gaping at the faerie’s ruined back, at the stumps, his metal eye narrowing and widening, narrowing and widening. He backed up a step. And another. And then vomited in a potted plant before sprinting from the room” (Maas 150). Lucien’s response of fear and sickness is part of the flight reflex he experienced at that moment which most likely was brought on by the remembrance of his own mutilation. The violent and terrible acts that were made against Lucien are what contribute to the creation of his disorder.

Lastly, within the first novel, Feyre is the character that experiences the most trauma. Her whole life is one big disturbing experience that impacts who she is. Her family has put pressure on her since she was fourteen years old. She was met with the realization that if she did not provide, her family would starve to death. Feyre is entirely too skinny after Tamlin takes her and, no matter how unwilling she is to obey him, she is even more unwilling to waste the food that is given. When the food vanishes from in front of her she “sets [her] fork down so they wouldn’t see [her] hand start to shake” (Maas 64). Her appreciation for food never goes away and she becomes angry at the thought of it being wasted. Feyre also experiences trauma from her killing of Andras and her interactions with the lesser fae. Her trauma and distress over these experiences appear in her dreams as “traumatic memory is made real” and eventually lead to “complex trauma” from “experiencing prolonged trauma while in a state of vulnerability” which will be explored more within the other books (Good and Hinton 4, 6). The first dream she has is centered around her killing Andras where he appears as a wolf but at the end, he lies dead as a high fae, and in her hands, she holds his skin instead of a pelt. As she wakes from this, she thinks, “it was regret, and maybe shame, that coated my tongue, my bones” and she eventually breaks down in front of Tamlin saying “I regret what I did to Andras…I regret that there was such hate in my heart. I wish I could undo it,” because for her this will stay with her as long as she lives (Maas 102,154). The rest of her dreams are often “plagued by the deaths [she’d] witnessed, the deaths [she’d] caused, and that horrible pale woman ripping [her] to shreds,” bringing her trauma to live in her memories and causing her great stress and anxiety towards an impending war and what it could mean for her if the spring court falls (Maas 169). Her appreciation for certain things and the nightmares that plague her nights are effects of the trauma she has experienced.

The characters in A Court of Thorns and Roses set the stage for the rest of the novels through the events they go through. Feyre experiences gender bias through the reversal of her gender role and trauma as a result of her family dynamic and the fae she interacts with. Lucien and Tamlin also gain mental health issues from their families while Tamlin’s is depression, Lucien’s is PTSD. These details of the characters contribute to the ideas of gender and mental health that are seen throughout the series. These themes will be looked at more as we move through the rest of this novel and the ones to come.

Work Cited

Filipowicz, Halina. “‘Am I That Name?’ Feminism, Feminist Criticism, and Gender Studies.” The Polish Review, vol. 59, no. 1, 2014, pp. 3–15. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.5406/polishreview.59.1.0003.

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.

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

Moreh, Swenda, and Henry O’Lawrence. “Common Risk Factors Associated with Adolescent and Young Adult Depression.” Journal of Health and Human Services Administration, vol. 39, no. 2, 2016, pp. 283–310, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44504679.

“Tam Lin.” Wikipedia, 25 Aug. 2022, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tam_Lin

“What Is Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)?” Psychiatry.org - What Is Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)?, https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/ptsd/what-is-ptsd.