The Phoenix Crown: A Novel

The titular phoenix crown is a treasure from ancient China and represents Henry’s control over women. He obtained this “looted crown” (193) unscrupulously, just as he attained his position as a patron of the arts—with money and power. The crown is a “hypnotic kingfisher blue” (337) and made with feathers as well as jewels. Henry demands that Gemma wear it when she sings “Queen of the Night” at his party, a few hours before the earthquake. She hates wearing it, because this act represents being treated as his possession, and takes it off quickly after her performance. After the earthquake, Henry saves the phoenix crown before setting his mansion on fire with the four women in it. He cares more about the crown, as it represents his money and power, than people. In Act II, Henry has his new fiancée, Cecilia, wear the crown at a party in France. When she discovers that he is a murderer and abuser, she burns the crown. This represents how, at the end of the novel, Henry no longer has power over women.

Fire symbolism runs throughout the novel, from the fires that wreck San Francisco to the brazier where Cecilia destroys the phoenix crown. It is a powerful, destructive force. Gemma thinks, “fire devoured beauty, it devoured peace, it devoured everything. At least it hadn’t devoured her friends” (270). Here, the authors describe fire’s destruction as a kind of consumption. In other words, it ravenously eats physical places and threatens to consume people as well. In this way, the fire symbolizes the forces of misogyny and greed that threaten the women’s ability to live and thrive. The fires traumatize the main characters of the novel. When Gemma is upset about her friends’ trauma, George says, “You all survived an inferno. Give them time” (321). When Chinatown, the Opera House, and other parts of the city are in ruins, Gemma and her friends survive. They are resilient enough to endure fire, a symbol of destruction. The fire at the octagon house was not the first one Henry set. He previously set the Park Avenue Hotel Fire and was scarred by it. Gemma and her friends use this fear when they threaten him with torches while demanding his confession. His new fiancée also uses fire against him when she burns the phoenix crown. While the women are not destroyed by fire, Henry is, in the end. His reputation goes up in flames with the phoenix crown.

Cages serve symbolic roles throughout the novel. Gemma has a budgie (a pet bird) named Toscanini, who mainly lives in a cage. She “didn’t want to get all metaphorical about birds in cages, but her eyes welled up every morning when she came downstairs to release Toscanini into […] octagon house conservatory” (135). A cage is a metaphor for being imprisoned. While the bird feels free in this conservatory, it is also the space in which Henry cages the four women before setting the house on fire. The whole conservatory becomes a cage they must escape or die. When Henry has Reggie involuntarily committed to an asylum, Gemma cries over Reggie “in her cage” (181). It is the earthquake that frees the patients at the asylum, but Suling guides the drugged Reggie to safety, away from her cage. Toscanini also survives the earthquake, and Gemma brings his cage along with her when she moves away from, and back to, San Francisco.