52 pages • 1 hour read
Eloise Jarvis McGrawMara, Daughter of The Nile
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1953A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Character Analysis
Mara
As the heroine of McGraw’s novel, 17-year-old Mara has been enslaved for as long as she can remember and has no clear memory of her parents. Nevertheless, she has unusual ambitions of someday winning her freedom and becoming rich and powerful enough to exact revenge on her cruel enslavers. A former master (a scribe) taught her how to read and write, and at the start of the novel, she is better educated and far more intellectually curious than her illiterate owners, whose books she steals and reads on the sly, risking a whipping each time. Because she is fed barely enough to keep her alive, she has become a skilled thief and can pocket honey cakes stolen from a baker’s tray with a magician’s dexterity. She is also a quick thinker with an ingenious, supple mind, and she puts her skills to good use when she is forced to act as a spy for two opposing factions of the Egyptian court. Her natural grace and beauty also help, as does her courage. Her most striking physical feature is her “lotus-blue” eyes, so uncommon in Egypt that her heritage, unknown even to herself, may well be foreign. Raised as an enslaved person without family or friends, Mara initially has no sense of community or political consciousness. When enlisted as a spy, first by Nahereh and then by Sheftu, her plan is to cynically “play both ends” (84) against each other until she can decide which faction will most benefit her. However, hints of “wistfulness” in her expression and faint memories of a loving parent suggest that she hides nobler feelings behind her tough exterior. Eventually, fellowship, conscience, and even patriotism bloom in her, nurtured by her feelings for Sheftu and his friends. She eventually comes to identify with the people of Egypt, who struggle under the yoke of the vainglorious Queen Hatshepsut. Finally, she risks her life to save Sheftu and his rebel friends from capture, even though she must defy her master, Nahereh, and the sadistic queen herself.
Sheftu
Lord Sheftu, the son of the richest man in Egypt, is the main male protagonist of the novel and plays a central role in the political intrigue and romantic subplot. A fixture of the royal court of Thebes and a trusted companion of Queen Hatshepsut, Sheftu is ideally placed to lead the growing insurgency, and he secretly plots to overthrow the queen and restore Thutmose III to the throne. To this end, Sheftu has been living a double life, masquerading as an apprentice scribe named Sashai so that he may move freely among commoners and Hatshepsut’s enemies alike to build his alliances against the queen. In this endeavor, he is not as skilled a chameleon as Mara has proven herself to be, for the plebeian Nekonkh sees through his disguise in a matter of days, recognizing the “smooth and subtle manners of a courtier” (3) in this alleged scribe. Tall and leanly muscular, Sheftu exudes a nonchalant, “lazy” grace that conceals his true emotions and formidable reserves of energy. Although described by others as “homely,” he is gifted with prodigious charisma, to which Mara and Queen Hatshepsut herself are especially susceptible. Although he has been reared in the rarefied heights of the aristocracy, Sheftu nevertheless possesses the common touch and feels deeply for the Egyptian commoners, whom he believes are cruelly served by the queen’s exorbitant taxes and other excesses. Like Mara, in the end, he is fully willing to sacrifice himself for the good of Egypt and its people. Although his dealings with Egypt’s bribe-hungry nobles have begun to make him cynical, Mara’s selfless courage in the climactic scene helps to restore much of his faith in humanity. By the novel’s conclusion, Sheftu is proud to make Mara his countess despite her lowly origins, and the two of them ride off into the sunrise: the symbolic dawning of a “new day” for themselves and for Egypt.
Inanni
As the daughter of a city king in the remote province of Canaan, Princess Inanni is summoned to Thebes by Queen Hatshepsut, ostensibly to marry the queen’s half-brother, Thutmose. In reality, the arrangement is a cruel joke on the queen’s part, for Thutmose has no intention of marrying a “barbarian” who lacks the Egyptian ideals of beauty and style and does not even speak his language. Inanni is also being used as a Trojan horse by Nahereh, Sheftu, and Mara, the latter of whom poses as her interpreter to obtain regular access to the divested king. Inanni has been brought to Egypt mostly against her will, as is implied by her deep homesickness for her family and pastoral homeland. She is also terrified by the large, sophisticated cities of Egypt. Unexpectedly for Mara, Inanni’s plight touches her heart, and unlike most of the people in Mara’s life, the princess is kind, vulnerable, and completely without artifice. Despite coming from a region deemed a backwater, she is perceptive enough to see through the charade of Mara’s “translations” of her discussions with the king, which she knows have nothing to do with herself. Mara realizes at once that she can trust this big-hearted woman, who is longing for a friend, and Inanni becomes her close confidante. Not only does Inanni show great courage and loyalty in helping Mara escape from the palace at a crucial moment, but she also helps Mara to become a more selfless person by sharing her wisdom about the true meaning of a nation, which resides in its people rather than its ruler. Inanni’s empathy and humanity spark an epiphany in Mara about her role as an Egyptian, marking a turning point in the story.
Nekonkh
A blunt, good-hearted river captain who befriends Sheftu in the first pages of the novel, Nekonkh becomes the rebel leader’s main confidant and plays an important part in Sheftu’s intrigues. Additionally, Nekonkh serves two other vital roles in the story. First, his candid, withering view of the queen, coming from a commoner with no connection to the royal court, signals that the people consider Hatshepsut to be a poor leader. This lends legitimacy to Sheftu’s scathing opinion of her. Also, because Nekonkh’s judgment is not clouded by romantic feelings, his steadfast faith in Mara has a pacifying influence on the hotheaded Sheftu, who wishes to kill her the instant he learns of her status as a spy for a faction other than his own. Thus, Nekonkh’s influence saves Mara’s life. His sympathy for her never wavers, even after she is falsely accused, whereupon he makes plans to smuggle her safety to Crete. His kindness toward Mara also factors crucially in her later epiphany that Egypt and its people (those “others” like herself) are well worth her sacrifice.
Hatshepsut
The main antagonist of the novel, McGraw’s version of Queen Hatshepsut is a fictionalized rendition of a famed historical figure who ruled Egypt from approximately 1479 BCE until1458 BCE. While McGraw incorporates many historical details of Hatshepsut’s reign, she also takes considerable liberties. Within the context of the novel, Hatshepsut has been reigning as a pharaoh in her half-brother’s stead for many years, ostensibly serving as queen regent until he comes of age. However, she has no intention of ever ceding the crown to him. According to Sheftu, she plotted to have her brother murdered when he was a child, but a “miracle” orchestrated by his powerful friends in the priesthood raised his public standing and forced her to change her plans. Also, according to Sheftu, Hatshepsut is a “pampered,” improvident leader who has pushed Egypt toward catastrophe with her grandiose building projects while leaving its empire undefended. Beautiful, scheming, and cruel, she is portrayed as an archetypal femme fatale, showing few signs of human feeling or conscience, and this impression is heightened by McGraw’s refusal to provide even the briefest glimpse into the queen’s inner thoughts. Although Hatshepsut does hint at possible romantic feelings for Sheftu, this admission only makes her more dangerous, for when Sheftu reveals that he loves Mara, the queen condemns the girl to be beaten to death in front of him. Only the opportune arrival of Khofra and his soldiers saves the two lovers. Afterward, Thutmose grants Hatshepsut the cold comfort of dying by her own hand. As she bravely does so, she vows that her great works of architecture will endure.
In real life, many of Hatshepsut’s edifices can still be seen in Egypt today, most famously her sprawling, innovative temple at Deir el-Bahari. However, McGraw’s account of Hatshepsut’s last days is heavily fictionalized. For instance, the historical record makes no mention of a palace rebellion, much less her execution by Thutmose III—who was Hatshepsut’s stepson, not her half-brother. Her historically verified qualities as a competent leader are also given short shrift in the novel, for most historians now regard Hatshepsut as one of the greatest pharaohs of Egypt and one of the most successful female monarchs of all time.
