Serafina and the Black Cloak

While he is not Serafina’s father by blood, Pa provides a depth of guardianship and provision exceeding that shown by many biological parents. Prior to the novel’s action, Pa saved Serafina from certain death in the woods, and he kept, cared for, and protected her despite her unusual appearance when all others rejected her. Even in his poverty, he tended to Serafina until she grew strong and lively. Serafina’s brightness and resilience reflects the validity and value of Pa’s fatherhood. He is a paternal presence not only to Serafina, but to Biltmore at large; a symbol of traditional masculine protection, he helped to build the mansion and now works keeping the mechanical features running. Pa is also a mentor archetype; he cares for Serafina and teaches her helpful things, like how to follow the river back to the estate.

Pa chooses to keep Serafina’s origin a secret until she is 12, living in the mansion’s basement. He is afraid that authorities might try to take Serafina if he lives in town or more openly. While the strained living situation is, from one perspective, an unfair imposition on his daughter who deserves to flourish within community, it is also a testament to the sacrifices Pa is willing to make to protect Serafina. His life would certainly be easier if he did not go to these lengths to hide her.

Just as Serafina’s character arc moves from youth to maturity, Pa’s character responds as he grows to respect her developing identity. Though Pa resists telling Serafina where she came from, and he resists believing her about the strange Man in the Black Cloak and tells her to stay hidden and not get involved. However, when she disobeys and spends the day in the forest, Pa is understanding and only grateful that she survives. Later, he is proud of her for her role in saving the missing children. His initial reservation over telling Serafina about her birth symbolizes a parent’s hesitancy in letting their child grow up. Eventually, he not only reveals her origin but understands that Serafina’s involvement in the Biltmore mystery brought a positive outcome; this symbolizes how parents must let go if their child is to fulfill an intended role in the world. Pa’s character arc is formed, most fundamentally, in his love for his daughter.

While Braeden presents a counterpoint to Serafina—he is wealthy, lives upstairs surrounded by people, and is a boy—he is nevertheless also similar to her. He is also 12 years old, orphaned, and a loner who feels connected to animals (though again in contrast to Serafina, his animal connections are domestic instead of feral). Most importantly, he is kind to Serafina, with whom he seems to feel an immediate connection that is both intuitive and counterintuitive; despite having only just met her and despite usually preferring the company of animals over humans, he is increasingly drawn to her and tells her about the missing children.

Braeden also shows a basic purity and goodwill; undoubtedly unlike many children his age, he is nonjudgmental and unperturbed by Serafina’s oddities—and he doesn’t so much as blink at the class divide between the two of them, symbolizing the true spirit of friendship. The friendship is transformative for both of them who, up to this point, have led lives of relative alienation. In contrast to Serafina’s physical isolation, however, Braeden’s isolation is internally motivated; he is surrounded by others but remains emotionally distant, as though he knows instinctively that others cannot relate to his troubled origins. Then along comes the orphaned Serafina, who can understand in her own way.

Braeden is an ally archetype, offering stable assistance. He and Serafina theorize together about the missing children, and he shows Serafina the vent passageways that enable eavesdropping for clues. Braeden’s mild manners contrast with both Serafina’s boldness and her compelling intuition. He does not want to search rooms of guests as Serafina suggests (though he does it) and he questions her suspicion that the Man in the Black Cloak is Mr. Thorne. Their differences, however, never threaten to drive them apart.

Before he is discovered as the Man in the Black Cloak, Mr. Thorne is a guest of the Vanderbilts who is first introduced in the context of his many talents: He is a phenomenal violinist and pianist, speaks Russian, and knows how to drive a carriage. Serafina, however, with her uncanny feline instincts, smells a rat. The illustrious Mr. Thorne’s talents are only a symptom of his underlying evil.

In 1899 in a former Confederate state, the American Civil War is certainly fresh in the cultural consciousness—yet it is only through Mr. Thorne that Confederate iniquities are suggested. Braeden tells Serafina that Mr. Thorne lost his “large estate” in the Civil War, and this estate is later twice referred to as a plantation. While novel doesn’t outright mention slavery, most antebellum Southern planters could not conceive of a plantation without slavery. It is therefore a reasonable assumption that Mr. Thorne was an enslaver whose “large estate” was a labor camp. The backstory not only fits but illuminates his character; after toppling from his unnatural aristocratic heights into ruin, he now uses the Cloak to accumulate the talents of others and thereby return to wealth and society—but, just as the planter he was, those skills are not his own. His Cloak enslaves the souls of others and puts them to work for him. No longer with the institution of slavery at his disposal, the Man in the Black Cloak still finds a way to prey upon the most vulnerable: children. The fact that Braeden glosses over the unqualified depravity of Mr. Thorne’s former planter livelihood—and even goes on to praise Mr. Thorne’s ostensible grit and industriousness—reflects something of the cultural milieu.

Despite his supernatural vitality, Mr. Thorne is old and dying, and he requires the souls of children to stay alive. His outer decay symbolizes his inner corruption. He is the clear antagonist and a static villain. Even when he is divested of the Cloak and supposedly freed from its controlling influence, he remains evil and tries to reclaim the garment. The only thing that changes about him is his outward appearance; his body decays and regenerates until he finally dies.

Leandra is Serafina’s mother whom Serafina meets by the end of the story, and the discovery is part of Serafina’s growing self-knowledge. Leandra is also a “changer”—a creature who can switch between human and animal forms. Her dual nature echoes Serafina’s own experiences of herself as split between darkness and light. When she is human, Leandra is a slender woman with amber eyes and yellowish-brown hair. When she is a catamount (or cat of the mountain), she is a strong, sleek, protective mountain lion. Twelve years before the story opens, the Man in the Black Cloak catches and traps Leandra’s human form, but her mountain lion form escapes and gives birth to a litter of mostly-human “cubs,” the only survivor of which is Serafina.

When Serafina destroys the Cloak and frees the trapped souls it collected, she effectively redeems a part of herself as Leandra—symbolizing Serafina’s origins—reemerges from the Cloak’s enslavement. Leandra is thrilled to reunite with Serafina and promises to teach her what she knows about being a hunter and changer. She is a friendly beast archetype, helping Serafina on her journey and representing nature’s virtue and kinship, but she is also a literal shapeshifter archetype who can change forms. She is a dynamic character as well, as her newfound freedom from the Cloak and discovery of Serafina bring change to her character.