45 pages • 1 hour read
Ava ReidA Study in Drowning
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2023A 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
Gender Dynamics and Systemic Discrimination
The novel’s central theme comes from Effy’s negative experience with and battle against systemic gender discrimination in her society. This is present at an institutional level as well as a deeper, ingrained cultural level. At the start of the novel, Effy is unsatisfied with her path in life because she’s studying a university subject that she isn’t particularly interested in. This is because the architecture college is a prestigious environment that has only recently begun to admit women, in contrast to her first-choice literature college, which is exclusively male. In becoming the architecture college’s first female student, Effy feels that she is transcending the university’s gender stigma in some way and taking a step forward for womankind. However, she does this at her own expense because she ends up studying something she isn’t passionate about.
Throughout her journey, Effy encounters resistance, dismissal, and entitlement from the men around her. This begins with her thesis advisor Master Corbenic, who feels a sense of entitlement toward her because she is a subordinate woman in a vast, male-dominated environment. The lack of accountability he experiences for his actions, compared to the rumors and preconceptions that follow Effy through school, further emphasizes the unbalanced gender standards at play. She experiences similar treatment from Colin Blackmar and his editor Marlowe, from Dean Fogg and Cedric Gosse, and from the Fairy King.
Effy’s experiences are reflected in Angharad, a difficult yet unifying point of solidarity between the two women. Angharad is revealed to be a literary genius, yet she spent the majority of her life in obscurity while the assorted men in her life took control of her body and her intellectual property. Because she had a consensual affair with Myrddin, though with an imbalanced power dynamic, she became an object to be bartered amongst men. In this moment, she was stripped of not only her bodily autonomy, but her most precious creative work. As the novel closes, both women attain a level of redemption. Angharad is able to live independently, make her own choices, and become recognized for the authorship of her magnum opus. Effy achieves her dream of attending her literature college and is even presented as a respected academic voice. She’s also able to triumph over her figurative enemy from the start of the story, ejecting Master Corbenic from the college and ensuring that no other woman will experience the same mistreatment at his hand. At the same time, she and Preston acknowledge that dynamic change doesn’t happen overnight; gender stigmas will still exist in academia, but, eventually, small progressions can create a better world.
The Power of Storytelling
As a novel that plays with the idea of a frame story, positioning the tale of Angharad as central to the propulsion of the wider plot, A Study in Drowning is deeply tied to the role of storytelling in society and its power to heal and unite. At the opening of the novel, Effy is pulled forward by her lifelong love for a cherished book by the reclusive and near-mythic Emrys Myrddin. The novel supports Effy on two levels. On the first, it comforts her in times of crisis and makes her believe in her inner strength. While reading it, Effy reflects that “Angharad’s words were so familiar, they were like the voice of an old friend” (47). The protagonist’s actions show Effy that it is possible to be a courageous, self-sufficient, and heroic woman in a society that doesn’t attribute women any value of their own. On the second, it helps arm Effy with very real tools against the Fairy King—it’s through Angharad’s story that she learns about the warding power of rowan and iron. This reflects the primary purpose of storytelling as a tool to teach people, particularly young people, valuable information in an immersive and memorable way.
The act of personal storytelling also becomes a point of connection for several of the characters: when Preston tells Effy the story of his father’s death; when Effy tells Preston about her childhood abandonment and meeting with the Fairy King; and when Angharad tells them both about her history with Myrddin and how her novel came into the world. Although each one is true, they’re approached as an extension of the oral storytelling tradition. There is a storyteller and a listener and the fluid essence of the story itself between them. In each storytelling scene, the act of sharing their stories brings the characters closer together, breaking down inhibitions that had previously existed between them. This refers to the greater cultural benefits of storytelling. Effy originally defends Myrddin’s work because he was Llyrian, and she values the cultural significance of her nation’s works of art. She distrusts Preston’s intentions with his research due to his home country of Arganta. Through their exploration of the other’s stories, though, and an investigation of the truth behind Angharad, they cross the figurative borders between their people and consider a better future for the two countries.
At the novel’s denouement, in which Effy and Preston present their findings to the university, they face a familiar narrative: one woman’s story being repressed by a close-knit cabal of powerful men. It was the situation Angharad faced, and the university expresses similar sentiment when first presented with Preston and Effy’s findings. When faced with a united front, Effy responds:
‘This thesis is a story about a young woman who was taken advantage of by powerful men. […] She was bartered like a head of cattle, traded by men who tried to claim her work as their own. How do you think it will look for the university to do precisely the same thing? If we do hand over the thesis, and you publish it without my name, I’ll go straight to the offices of the Llyrian Times and tell them yet another story about men using young women’ (367).
Effy uses the word “story” twice in this tirade, instinctually understanding the power it wields. By framing her argument not as a series of facts about social injustice but as the right story, she is able to make her point resonate more deeply and ultimately achieve her goal. Relating to the theme of systemic discrimination, this scene alludes to common narratives that uphold sexist beliefs and allow institutions to perpetrate harmful behavior.
On a metafictional level, there is an engagement with tropes in romance novels, specifically those within the young adult fantasy or general fiction space. Effy recounts tropes about romantic stories, even identifying them in her favorite novel and acknowledges the troubling complexity of admiring the character of the Fairy King despite his negative actions. While alluring or marketable, some of these tropes can reinforce sexist dynamics and encourage the internalization of gender roles. This critique of broader trends in the genre returns to discussion on how dark academia often contends with social or institutional ailments.
The Variability of Truth
Several dynamics across the novel come from the imbalance and conflict between truth and lies. This represents another type of storytelling—two conflicting narratives, each with the power to effect change. It’s also a point of contrast between Preston and Effy. It’s immediately clear that Preston’s loyalty isn’t to any agenda, but to objective truth. He pursues Myrddin’s work because he suspects the truth has been derailed at some point, but he doesn’t yet know its extent. For example, this parallels some of the scholarly debate surrounding the work of William Shakespeare, which contests the true authorship of his work. Initially, Effy looks for alternate motivations behind Preston’s approach, but he insists on several occasions that he’s only after the truth. Effy views the dynamic of truth and lies very differently because of her cultural beliefs. Referring to her own country’s myths and the history that divides the two nations, she expresses a private but wholehearted belief in them, presenting her as an unreliable narrator with deep-rooted prejudices. The truth is inherently uncertain in this context. Later, she reconsiders her perception of truth and lies and wonders if they are entirely distinct: “If a story repeated itself so many times over, building itself up brick by brick, did it eventually become the truth?” (272). This is part of her inner journey to realize that the beliefs her culture instilled in her aren’t objective facts; rather, they are ideologies held just as firmly by opposing nations, all of which should be subject to scrutiny. Preston helps urge the development of this theme forward, as he approaches the conflicts in the story with a more neutral approach while respecting the validity of Effy’s emotions.
Myrddin’s legacy, the focal point of the novel, is also built out of a complex structure of lies. At its most basic, his lineage is a result of plagiarism—he took credit for and attached his name to another’s intellectual work. This, in turn, grew into the much broader and more subjective mistruths that people like Effy told themselves about who he must have been. It’s for this reason that Myrddin was granted a prestigious place in the Sleeper Museum, a place with supposed magical powers that Effy believes in, which he did not earn. Effy and countless other girls came to believe in an ideal regarding his attitude toward women and what he was trying to do for them through his story. Once faced with the truth, Effy undergoes a painful development as she leaves the comfort and familiarity of the lie behind. She is forced to deal with systemic sexism in her society that runs even deeper than she expected and accept the unreliability of the legends that she had put her faith in, even though magic is proven to exist through the Fairy King. In embracing the truth, however, she is able to grow and move on to the next stage of her journey.
