45 pages • 1 hour read
William RitterJackaby
William RitterFiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2014A 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
Perception, Illusion, and Truth
Jackaby deals with the world of glamour and illusion, with the title character having the unique gift of seeing “behind the curtain” (34). This setup naturally lends itself to exploring themes of expectation, denial, and the everyday façades regular people project every day.
Ironically, Jackaby is perhaps the only character with no such projections; as someone with the ability to see the truth in all things, he presents himself to the world exactly as he is. Abigail, meanwhile, tries to present herself as the confident professional she believes herself to be but is often thwarted by society’s preconceptions of her gender. There is no magic involved in the deception, but still, the truth of her character is obscured by the skewed expectations of those around her. Although this is an obstacle and a point of contention for Abigail, she also sees its value when she emphasizes her femininity to access a crime scene. When Jackaby questions the “performance” (32), she tells him she merely used an illusion already in place. Despite her challenging circumstances as a woman, she has an innate understanding of how perception shapes the world and how to adapt to it as needed.
Another character who deals intimately with these values is Charlie Cane, a man forced to hide one aspect of himself to sustain another. While it would be easy to argue that one of his shapes is his “true” self and the other an illusion, the truth is more nuanced; each is an integral part of his being. However, the structure of his society necessitates that these selves be layered one atop the other rather than balanced in harmony. Another example of irony is that when one of these selves is stripped away—when Charlie transforms in front of the other officers—it creates a false idea that he’s the murderer and a creature to be feared. In revealing one truth, the moment obscures the larger truth even further. Even Abigail is briefly taken in by what she expects the supernatural to represent, so her perception obscures the truth.
Finally, Commissioner Swift uses perception and illusion on multiple levels to hide his murders and secure his position in his home city. On one level, he uses magical glamour to hide his inner nature as a redcap—this alters his physical appearance and hides his more frightening, inhuman traits. Like Abigail, however, Swift also uses preconceptions already in place: He hides behind his status and authority. Even Jackaby is fooled by this pretense, staying out of the commissioner’s way and believing him to be nothing more than he would appear. In this way, Swift compounds his deception with two separate layers of illusion, each deflecting the truth by manipulating the perceptions of others.
The Nature of Humanity
As the novel centers around a range of human and non-human characters, one of the biggest questions it raises is what it truly means to be human. Non-human characters include a malicious goblin-like creature, a shapeshifter who lives as a human being, a loveable ghost, and a duck. Even Jackaby could be considered more than human, having been gifted with a supernatural ability. Each of these balances what readers might think of as their “humanity” in a different way. This gray area is encapsulated succinctly when Jackaby tells Abigail, “That depends on your definition of people…and also of living” (90).
Jenny and Douglas, two of Abigail’s new housemates, are examples of non-human entities that began their lives as normal human beings. While Jenny is no longer bound by the constraints of a human body, she retains many of her human attributes, such as her willingness to care for Abigail and her attraction to Jackaby. Before meeting him, her home on Augur Lane cycled through the property market and fell to the city because of people’s disinclination to share a home with a ghost—a rejection of her humanity. When Jackaby came to investigate, he offered her the gift of treating her like a real person. With him, she doesn’t need to deny either the natural or the supernatural aspects of herself; she can be both simultaneously.
Douglas is also at odds with his humanity. Like Jenny, the life he knew was taken from him, and he was forced to become something more. Although his state is included as a comical device within the novel, the longstanding dispute between Douglas, Jenny, and Jackaby about Douglas’ transformation opens a larger discussion on human nature. In his case, Jackaby believes humanity to be an innate state of being that rests within Douglas, regardless of his physical form. Jenny disagrees, suggesting that humanity is fluid. Here, humanity isn’t a species or even a conscious state but something more psychologically complex.
Like Jenny, Charlie has a foot in each state of being. Yet, unlike Jenny and Douglas, he has never been strictly human, having been born into a supernatural family. However, he lives a more practical human life than either of them. Charlie encapsulates human traits such as loyalty and kindness, making him a valuable ally to Jackaby and Abigail. His day-to-day life and career are not very different from Commissioner Swift’s, as both are able to function unnoticed in the human world; however, Swift has no true humanity at all, while Charlie lives as an honorable human as best he can. Between the two of them, the concept of humanity is elevated to something more than species alone and toward a state of choice, worldview, and values.
Social Dynamics
The novel uses its mystery structure, the period, and the dichotomy of the natural and supernatural to explore a range of social contrasts and constructs. As the novel’s central protagonist, Abigail is disadvantaged as a woman in a male-dominated society. Throughout the story, she has multiple people telling her that her work isn’t suited to the “female temperament” (44) and are ready to dismiss her. This battle is already familiar to her from her attempts to work with her father on his archeological digs. Her parents have strict, predetermined expectations of what she should be based on her gender and their place in society. Even after she manages to escape the constrictions of her life in England, Abigail fears that her father would still have power over her if he were able to get in touch. This shows how in some ways, even she is vulnerable to the cultural stigma of social dynamics.
Social structure is also prominently featured in the police force, with Charlie Cane, Inspector Marlowe, and Commissioner Swift each occupying a unique layer in the force’s hierarchy. Commissioner Swift represents ultimate, unchallenged power, a space he uses to support his murderous impulses. Charlie, on the other hand, represents the masses that support the network. He is loyal and accepts his place in the social order because it supports his need to do the right thing; however, it also puts him in a position of powerlessness when he sacrifices his place in New Fiddleham. Swift, meanwhile, is honored as a hero in death. Marlowe, caught between the two, is forced to make a difficult choice to preserve the social order. In this instance, maintaining social convention becomes more important than true justice, even though Marlowe’s reasons support the greater good.
Through a magical lens, the novel also draws attention to the divide between wealth and poverty. Hatun’s protective shawl allows her to pass unnoticed by everyone apart from other unhoused folk like herself. While Abigail is in between living situations, she can see Hatun clearly. However, as she becomes more comfortable in her new life, her perception of Hatun shifts. There is a clear metaphor here for how people like Hatun, the unhoused and neurodivergent, are perceived by those on a more conventional and comfortable plane of society. In reality, someone like Hatun would easily go unnoticed with or without a magical shawl. This gives the novel, and the reader, a way to examine this real-world issue at the intersection of the magical and the mundane.
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