104 pages • 3 hours read
Marissa MeyerCinder
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2012A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Symbols & Motifs
The Cyborg Draft
The cyborg draft communicates the belief that cyborgs are less than human and therefore of lesser value. In the search for a cure for letumosis, humans are not forced to participate at the cost of their life, only cyborgs: “It was made out to be some sort of honor, giving your life for the good of humanity, but it was really just a reminder that cyborgs were not like everyone else” (29). Cyborgs reach a level of value within the social world only through their role as test subjects.
Taken against her will and by force, Cinder arrives to the research lab unconscious, waking up in restraints. The treatment of Cinder while in the lab—restrained and invasively assessed—highlights the dehumanizing actions aimed at cyborgs. They lack choice for participating in the cyborg draft, and they lack choice in what happens to them throughout the research procedures; no consent is needed for these actions to take place.
Cyborgs of value to the researchers are injected with letumosis, followed by an antidote. However, up to the point of Cinder’s participation in the research, no successful antidotes exist, resulting in cyborg deaths. No words help to comfort Cinder, and there are only observations made by Erland and others from the safety of another room. They talk about her as though she is a thing, a means to an end, and not a living being capable of feeling.
Cinder’s Mechanical Foot
As a fractured fairytale, Cinder’s mechanical foot connects the novel to the classic story of “Cinderella.” In contrast to the beautiful glass slipper of Cinderella, Cinder begins the story removing a mechanical foot that is small and uncomfortable, replacing it for one that fits just right. Throughout the story, she keeps the mechanical foot hidden as a way to hide that she is cyborg. It is a representation of being an undesirable.
As Cinderella loses her glass slipper at the chime of midnight, Cinder loses her foot on two occasions, but under more unfortunate circumstances. In “Cinderella,” the loss of the glass slipper reunites Cinderella and the prince, leading to a happy ending in that story. For Cinder, the loss of the mechanical foot arrives for darker reasons. Cinder first loses her foot to Adri, who takes the foot for its monetary value, with Cinder “cursing her stepmother with each limping step” (302). Cinder again loses her foot at the ball as she attempts to escape Queen Levana. Prince Kai then picks up the lost mechanical foot. Whereas in “Cinderella” this a moment that leads to love between the two main characters, in Cinder, the opposite effect occurs: Kai is ultimately repulsed that Cinder is a cyborg, and “would not look at her” (366). The foot reminds Cinder that she is unwanted by many in her world. Unlike strangers that may judge Cinder, rejection by someone she cares about hurts at a deeper level.
Cinder’s Gloves
Cinder’s gloves function as more than a useful tool for her mechanical work. Her gloves hide evidence that she is a cyborg; her right hand is human, but her left hand is synthetic. Although reference is made to the lack of comfort she feels at constantly wearing her gloves, she chooses discomfort over others knowing her secret: “She covered her steel hand first, and though her right palm began to sweat immediately inside the thick material, she felt more comfortable with the gloves on, hiding the plating of her left hand” (5).
Cinder’s gloves represent the knowledge that she is part of a group that is misunderstood and rejected by society. Adri questions her ability to feel emotion, and her stepsister, Pearl, degrades Cinder by referencing her as a “wirehead” (28). With Cinder’s leg, foot, and left hand covered, she appears human to those who do not know her, and is thus treated differently because they believe she is human.
Glamour/Glamouring
The Lunar glamour is a form of magic that alters how others think and see certain Lunars, including Queen Levana. Underneath her glamour, Queen Levana is the opposite of beautiful, a characteristic that may lead others to reject her. Rather than share her true aesthetic, she creates a synthetic picture of herself, and adjusts the world around her to maintain this deception.
Queen Levana visits the Eastern Commonwealth immediately following Emperor Rikan’s death, with the hopes of securing a marriage with Prince Kai. In preparation for her arrival, all mirrored surfaces, such as netscreens, are removed because they are immune to her glamour. Levana refuses people the opportunity to see her true self.
Multiple examples of the queen’s use of her glamour exist, including her ability to control not only what others see, but what they think. Protesters claim their dislike of the Queen’s visit just outside the palace grounds. However, after the Queen appears on a balcony at the palace and is in view of the protestors, their behavior changes:
The crowd’s silence created a vacuum on the street, yearning to fill with breath, with sound, with anything. Cinder looked around, at the dazzled faces turned upward to the palace, at the lowered signs held in limp fingers (204).
Queen Levana’s manipulation works to alter the thoughts of disruptive citizens, controlling them via her glamour.
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