The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

Title:   The Night Circus

Author: Erin Morgenstern       

Author’s website: https://erinmorgenstern.com/

ISBN:    9780099554790 / Original publication date: 2011

Points: 4

TITLE-EXPLANATION:

The Night Circus is about a circus that only opens at night. The title refers to that.

SETTING & TIME:

Most of the events happen in the circus, which would be the setting. The circus travels across the whole world. The book starts in London where also a lot takes place. The story takes place between 1873 and 1903.

MAIN CHARACTER(S):

Celia Bowen: Celia is described as having long, curly black hair and large dark eyes. She can be short tempered and impulsive. When she is introduced, she is quiet and attentive. Her short temper was first shown as she breaks a cup when someone teases her mother. During her time in the circus, she is shown to be extremely kind and polite to everybody.

Marco Alisdair: Marco has dark hair and grey-green eyes. Though, most of the time he had an illusion on his face that made his features appear sharper and older. A goatee would appear, and his eyes would turn a bright green. One of Marco’s key personality traits is his charm. He has a natural or manipulated charm that wins over many of the people he meets.

PLOT & STRUCTURE:

Le Cirque des Rêves is an enchanting circus that comes and goes, with no schedule. It captivates people from around the world and is considered a wonder. However, the real purpose of the circus is to serve as the venue for a competition between two magicians. Celia and Marco have been bound to it since they were young. They both have been trained to show off their magic skills in a contest whose rules neither understand. Celia works in the circus from the inside as a illusionist. While Marco works from the outside as the producer’s assistant. They both showcase their talents and powers in tents that pop up out of nowhere. They contain incredible work of magic that public thinks are just clever tricks. Celia and Marco fall in love but are unable to get together because they are bound to the circus and the competition.

The book is structured as an event story. The event is the competition between Marco and Celia.

NARRATIVE TECHNIQUE:

The story is written in a third point of view. The narrator has access to all the thoughts and emotions of the characters. The narration is indirect. The narrator isn’t directly talking to the readers. The speech is free indirect. The characters thoughts are written. The story is written in the present. Everything is happening right now.

GENRE + THEME(S):

The genre of the Night Circus is fantasy.

Rivalry and Competition: The whole story is about the competition between Marco and Celia. They must outperform each other in a game they do not fully understand the rules and boundaries of.

Love: Marco and Celia fall in love. They both admitted that every tent they created was for each other. They both were even ready to commit suicide so that the other could win.

CLIMAX/TURNING POINT:

The climax of the story is on page 357 when Friedrick Thessien is murdered inside the circus. Hector Bowen is confronted by Mr.A.H. and the circus leaves without Bailey.

SHORT SUMMARY:

In 1873, five-year-old Celia Bowen is deposited at the office of her magician father, Prospero the Entertainer, after her mother's unfortunate suicide. Although Prospero does not have any desire to parent a child, he is intrigued when it becomes clear that his daughter exhibits magical ability. Immediately, Prospero contacts his previous teacher, Mr. AH, and demands a dual: old magic versus new in a battle to the death. Accepting Prospero's wager, Mr. AH sets out to find his own pupil, an orphan named Marco Alisdiar, whom he plucks from an orphanage and schools in the ways of old magic. When Marco is eighteen years old, he is sent to work as the assistant to Chandresh Christophe Lefevre, an eccentric yet brilliant man who creates the idea of traveling night circus. He hires Celia Bowen to work as an illusionist in the show, inadvertently creating a venue for the greatest battle magic has ever seen. Although they are unaware that the other is their opponent, every move that Marco and Celia make surrounding the circus is considered a "move" in their never-ending game of magical chess, in which one illusionist will emerge victorious and the other will have fought to the death.

Marco is the first to discover that Celia is his opponent, and when he is forced to leave the circus to work with Chandresh, Marco sends his girlfriend Isobel to work as a spy, sending him information about Celia's movement. What Marco doesn't know is that as soon as she arrives at the circus, Isobel performs a tempering spell, creating a sense of balance and harmony in the battle between Marco and Isobel. The two illusionists work tirelessly, always trying to out-imagine their opponent as they create mystifying and outrageous circus tents to impress the guests such as moving carousels with living animals, gardens constructed entirely out of ice, and winding labyrinths of clouds. As the competition intensifies, Marco and Celia realize that they are connected not only through their fierce competition, but also through their emotions. Although they try desperately to avoid it, both young illusionists realize that they are falling in love.

Unaware of the magical hold they have over the lives of the circus performers, who are truly just pawns in the venue of the competition, Marco and Isobel tread dangerously toward destruction as they allow their feelings for each other to cloud the competition. Celia, who literally holds the circus together with her thoughts, begins to waver in her control, and as a result, Tara Burgess, one of the circus' founding members, dies. On Halloween Night, 1902, Isobel discovers that Marco is in love with Celia, and in an act of revenge, destroys the tempering spell, tearing apart the delicate balance that had held the circus together for so many years. In this moment, a dangerous schism is created, allowing danger to enter the circus for the first time. Chandresh, drunk and confused, arrives at the circus on the same evening and kills Herr Friedrick Thiessen. This act of violence would never have been possible while the tempering act was still in place.