44 pages • 1 hour read
Katy HaysThe Cloisters
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022A 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
Fate Versus Free Will
The novel deals with divination and intuition, and explores the contrast between fate and free will, or destiny and personal agency. Several of the characters take different stances, and Katy Hays uses their conflicting perspectives to deepen these characters further. The prologue, told by Ann Stilwell in retrospect, reveals the perspective she arrives at following the plot’s events:
It was easy, at first, to miss the omens that haunted The Cloisters that summer. […] An inescapable future that found us, not the other way around. An unlucky throw. One that I could have foreseen, if only I—like the Greeks and the Romans—had known what to look for (2).
Despite the mystical connotations of the tarot cards, Ann initially sees them only as a historical artifact. Any symbolism they hold for her relates to what doors they may open in her career. She believes that the world is one of unstructured chaos, and that fortune telling is a construct that people through all ages have clung to as a way of navigating that chaos. Ann herself becomes a symbol of free will juxtaposed against the destiny represented by tarot cards. This creates the potential for conflict with Patrick Roland, who collects rare items of mystical significance and believes in their power. Instead of fostering this conflict, the novel takes a different direction: He reaches out to her with his beliefs and inspires her to reassess what she knows about fate. When the novel takes a dark turn and Patrick is murdered, Ann suspects his demise was predestined.
Rachel Mondray is another character who struggles with the dichotomy between fate and free will. She fears divination because of the tea leaf reading that foretold a dark fate for her mother. Despite Rachel’s belief that choice is “the ultimate level playing field” (283), she refuses to have her cards read or to engage with the divination process. While she uses the concept of free will to defend her actions toward others, she also harbors fear that her reality may be beyond her control.
By the end of the novel, Ann is thoroughly convinced of her belief in fate, destiny, and preordination. Like Rachel, she uses this belief to absolve herself of the choices she has made. The novel avoids didacticism and allows the reader to come to their own conclusions about the true nature of fate and free will.
Choice and Personal Responsibility
Each character within the novel makes choices along their journeys that drive the plot forward. Many of them find ways to deflect responsibility for their choices, citing either fate, circumstance, or social construction. One of the clearest examples of this is the death of Rachel’s former roommate, who died by falling out of a window. Rachel suggests the girl leapt “of her own free will” (281), using the concept of free will to absolve herself of personal responsibility.
Although Ann accuses Rachel of being a murderer, she deflects personal responsibility in her own way. When she betrays Leo for his theft, implying he may have murdered Patrick, she justifies her choice as necessary for her and Rachel’s academic progression. Rachel makes a similar argument in defense of her own rise to success: “Why do you think I slept with Patrick? Because I felt I had to” (282). She makes a similar claim about his murder, stating, “All these years, it’s always great discoveries by great men” (282). Rachel uses the limitations and constrictions of the world she lives in as a way to excuse actions that she sees as necessary for her survival. Ann, although she disdains Rachel’s choices, secures her success in the same way. She removes Leo and eventually Rachel to clear her own way forward.
Ann also discards responsibility for her father’s death, much like Rachel does with the death of her roommate. Although Ann’s father’s death was accidental, she struggles with the choice she made to leave him and escape persecution. Ultimately, she overcomes her guilt by acknowledging that his death and her flight were predestined. Although their reasoning is in direct opposition, Ann and Rachel both find ways to distance themselves from the choices they made.
Of all the novel’s characters, Leo takes full ownership of his actions. Ann confronts him at several stages of their relationship: at the farmer’s market at his herbal stall, about having a prior relationship with Rachel, and about the thefts at the museum. Unlike Ann and Rachel, he never denies his actions or tries to absolve himself by citing circumstances beyond his control. Instead, he feels grounded enough in his own way of life to acknowledge his choices without apology.
The Conflict Between Ambition and Loyalty
In addition to the struggle between ownership of and deflection of responsibility, the novel examines the conflict between ambition in the academic world and loyalty to loved ones. Early in the story, Ann is caught between loyalty to her mother and aspirations to become a successful scholar. Ann’s mother becomes a well-meaning though antagonistic force in Ann’s journey, as she makes Ann feel guilty for abandoning her home. Ann’s mother is also mentally unwell and grieving deeply for her lost husband. Ann turns away from what’s left of her family in order to pursue her dreams and distance herself from her own involvement in her father’s death.
Once Ann becomes part of the Cloisters’ small community, she finds her loyalties pulled in several directions. She owes her role and place in New York to Patrick, who rescued her from unexpected redundancy immediately following her arrival; she begins a strong female friendship with Rachel, who elevates her and makes her aspire to more; she enters into a relationship with Leo, who shows her another side to living in the city. Quickly, she learns that her loyalties can’t all coexist. Rachel confronts Ann about her relationship with Leo when she begins to fear that it will be ruinous, accusing Ann of “compartmentalizing.” Rachel feels that there is now a polarity between herself and Leo due to Ann’s actions, but Ann’s true loyalty is to neither of them: it is to the work itself.
Ann makes genuine, enriching personal connections throughout the novel, and faces recurring choices between these connections and her ultimate goal. As the plot progresses and Ann develops, she alienates first Patrick, then Leo, and finally Rachel. At the end of the novel, she has sacrificed all her interpersonal relationships but gained new standing in the academic community and a chance at a bright future within it.
Each character chooses ambition over loyalty in their own way; however, Ann is the only one who emerges from her choices victorious and stronger for them. For Patrick, Leo, and Rachel, alienating the people who care for them ultimately leads to their undoing. This encourages discussion and debate about whether Ann’s choice of ambition over loyalty is right or wrong, and how her story might have ended if she had made a different choice.
