69 pages • 2 hours read
Eleanor CattonThe Luminaries
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2013A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Astral Charts
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of drug use.
Astrology, or the practice of reading the positions of the stars and other celestial objects to divine both the future and people’s characters, is the organizing motif of The Luminaries. The novel is divided into 12 parts, and each part begins with an astrological chart that details how the characters interact with one another in that section; this also corresponds with the real astral chart on that day and in that location, which is designated by the latitude and longitude written on the chart.
Further, even the major characters in the novel are each linked to astrological symbols. The 12 members of the Crown Hotel council are each related to one of the 12 zodiac signs. The seven “planetary” characters are each represented with a symbol on the chart in the “house” (or sign of the zodiac) that they interact with in that part of the story. The chapter names in all of the parts—with the exception of Part 5 and Part 10—are named for these interactions. As an example of how to decode this system, Chapter 10 of Part 1 is titled “Venus in Capricorn.” Venus, a symbol of desire, represents Lydia in the novel, and Capricorn corresponds with Gascoigne. So, Chapter 10 describes the interaction between Lydia and Gascoigne when he learns that she is engaged to be married; Gascoigne is disappointed by this news because he desires her for himself.
The use of the astral charts as a guide through the novel suggests that the characters do not entirely have free will; rather, their fates are predetermined and are tied to the movements of the celestial bodies. Astral charts also appear within the story itself since Lydia runs a side business of making people’s astral charts in Dunedin and she uses them to tell fortunes. She reads Staines’s chart and discovers that he is fated to be exceptionally lucky. Further, she is surprised to learn that Anna shares the same chart as Staines since she was born in the same place and location as Staines. This shows that Lydia sincerely believes in the predictive powers of this form of divination.
Gold
Many of the characters in The Luminaries are chasing the gold rush, hoping to strike it rich and thereby change their circumstances. When Staines cashes in the gold nugget for Crosbie at the Reserve Bank, people assume that he is incredibly lucky. However, the only character in the story who actually finds a “bonanza” is Crosbie Wells, and his find does not lead him to fortune. Instead, his gold and identity are stolen, he is forced to flee from Dunedin, and he dies a lonely death in a small cottage on the outskirts of Hokitiki.
Crosbie’s sad fate is an indication of how gold works as a symbol in The Luminaries. Although gold promises great things, it leads to loneliness and tragedy. Gold carries the illusion of luck but brings misfortune since it causes people to lose their sense and humanity. Carver wants to kill Crosbie for his gold; Quee steals from Anna; Nilssen is blackmailed for it; Gascoigne and Mannering fight over it. This negative aspect of the precious object is reflected in the description of the first time Anna holds gold, when “it seemed to turn dull in her hands” (695).
The Māori do not share the colonists’ interest in the gold. Tauwhare instead looks for pounamu, a greenstone. When Crosbie ventures that the greenstone is equivalent to gold, Tauwhare angrily rejects that notion as greenstone has a functional and ritual use and is not commercially traded.
Opium
Opium is as important a commodity as gold in the novel, and it leads to similarly terrible outcomes. Quee’s and Sook’s families are both impacted by the Opium Wars in China when the British fight in Kwangchow to open China up to the opium trade. Quee’s father dies, ashamed by China’s defeat, while Sook’s father is executed when opium is found in his warehouse, though he had nothing to do with it. This leads both Quee and Sook into poverty, and they wind up living in rough conditions in the Kaniere mining camp.
To other characters like Anna, opium is harmfully addictive. Anna is described as “liv[ing] by the will of the dragon […], a drug that played steward to an imbecile king, and she would guard that throne with jealous eyes forever” (135). Opium becomes the thing she wants most in the world, even more than gold. She has no control over her desire for the drug, which the novel describes as an “imbecile king” that rules her life. While some of the characters, such as Quee, are judgmental of Anna and Sook for their opium addiction, their own addiction to finding gold and getting rich is not dissimilar. They are all looking for a way out of their terrible circumstances, whether through money or drugs.
