The Miniaturist

The Prologue establishes the tone of The Miniaturist and creates mystery. Burton poses many questions as the third-person narrator describes, in present tense, the funeral of an unnamed person watched by an anonymous observer. Only toward the end of the novel is it evident that this is Marin’s funeral, and the mourners are the protagonist, Nella, and her servant, Cornelia. The unnamed watcher is the miniaturist. Before leaving Amsterdam, the miniaturist’s final act is to place a miniature of Marin’s home on her grave. Readers will later learn that the miniaturist has taken the house from Nella’s pocket.

This short section also introduces many of the novel’s themes and motifs. The atmosphere is uneasy, as the scene is marked by intense observation—a motif that will pervade nearly the entire narrative. While the miniaturist watches the congregation, the people she observes closely monitor the behavior of the mourners and judge each other. The conflicting values of Amsterdam are established when the narrator describes the Old Church’s ceiling as a “mirror to the city’s soul” (1). The ceiling’s murals emphasize the city’s dual obsessions with religion and money, featuring an angry God and a man defecating money. The hypocritical nature of Amsterdam’s society is also highlighted by the observation that none of the funeral’s attendees are friends of the deceased. The milieu initiates the theme of The Contradictions of Amsterdam.

Beginning the narrative with a death introduces the ongoing motif of mortality and decay. Meanwhile, the city’s collective consciousness is presented in the narrator’s reflection: “Hard grind got us the glory […] but sloth will slide us back into the sea. And these days, the rising waters feel so near” (3). The reference to a figurative rising tide—another motif—draws attention to Amsterdam’s wealth and foreshadows its decline. While the canals have provided the nation’s “golden age” of prosperity, its citizens fear that their good fortune will be washed away by those same canals.

The trapped starling in the Old Church begins the novel’s recurring symbolism of birds and cages, signifying freedom versus imprisonment. The bird’s reluctance to leave the church when given a chance foreshadows the choices the miniaturist offers the women of Amsterdam; in the upcoming chapters, she will send notes to women and encourage them to find empowerment and embrace autonomy in their lives. These letters will be a key vehicle for the theme of Gender Roles and Autonomy.