82 pages • 2 hours read
Robert BeattySerafina and the Black Cloak
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2015A 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
Symbols of Identity
The novel contains a variety of symbols for identity, changes or discoveries about identity, or hidden identities. For example, Serafina’s eyes and interesting hair-color symbolize her individuality. These features also represent her connection, literally and figuratively, to her mother, who shares similar features. When she dons the dress Braeden gives her, it marks her maturation and symbolizes her chosen transformation into someone who faces new situations with courage and confidence. Her struggle—and success—with walking slowly down the hall in the dress to bait Mr. Thorne (instead of catching him while hiding herself) represents a redefined identity. Trying on the cloak symbolizes her continued search for answers about who she is deep inside and what her contributions to the world should be. Finally, while she has spent all of her life hidden in isolation, Serafina at last stands in the open at the side of the forest at the end of the story, and this moment symbolizes how she will grow and change to welcome—and be welcomed by—others in her life.
The Forest
The forest is dark and foreboding beneath its dense canopy. Throughout most of the story, it symbolizes danger and the unknown. Its trees trap Braeden’s and Serafina’s carriage, making them vulnerable to attack from the Man in the Black Cloak. Somewhere in the deep woods, there is an old cemetery with hints of the undead, and there hides an abandoned town that Serafina never does discover.
The forest also represents part of Serafina’s psychology. Her character is divided between rationality and instinct, and the forest is a place where instinct takes charge, as evidenced when the lioness attacks Serafina (who turns out to be her own daughter) and when the lioness and Gidean attack and defeat Mr. Thorne. Although the forest is the home of her mother and the place of her birth, Serafina recognizes the validity of Pa’s teachings: “There are dark forces there that no one understands, things that ain’t natural and can do ya wicked harm” (8). Serafina nevertheless feels a strange kinship with the forest; she respects and understands its creatures (like the lion cubs and the wolf). Her regard for the forest and her instinctive understanding of it play into her plan to bait Mr. Thorne and eventually defeat the Cloak.
Light and Darkness
Light traditionally represents positive forces like safety, purity, and goodness. Early in the story, in her interior monologue, Serafina distinguishes between the light and bright finished rooms of the basement, like the kitchens and pantries, and the dark and dismal subbasement. In the daylight, Biltmore is a grand “Lady on a Hill” (156), as Serafina sees as she departs in the carriage with Braeden: “In the open light of the setting sun, the mansion really could be quite startlingly lovely. But as the sun withdrew its brightness behind the surrounding mountains, it cast ominous shadows across the estate, which reminded her of griffins, chimeras, and other twisted creatures of the night that were half one thing and half another” (82). In a parallel battle to Serafina’s attempt to find and defeat the Man in the Black Cloak, Pa fights to repair the broken dynamo and bring light to Biltmore once more.
The mansion’s radiance is only magnified by the surrounding forest—the image that, apart from the Black Cloak, exudes the greatest darkness. Where Biltmore’s light represents safety and predictability, the forest’s darkness represents danger and mystery—yet the forest’s darkness is not absolute. In Chapter 19, even as Serafina wanders deep into the forest (contemplating her own potential inner darkness and light) she looks up to the stars—enduring points of light amidst darkness—and sees a dazzling comet shower. During her walk, she is struck by a sudden inspiration for how to lure the enemy into a trap. The light of the stars here represents knowledge, a pivotal force in the mystery genre. While they ultimately depict a process of metaphorical illumination, mystery stories are an artful balance of the known and unknown, of light and darkness. It is, counterintuitively, in the darkness of the forest that Serafina finds the greatest illumination for her identity when she discovers her lioness mother.
