69 pages • 2 hours read
Eleanor CattonThe Luminaries
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2013A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Astrological Influences on People
In astrology, the term “correspondences” refers to the connections between the macrocosm (or the universe) and the microcosm, such as individual people or even parts of the body. In this belief system, there are also correspondences between celestial bodies—such as between Mars and the zodiac sign Aries—that are reflected in the relationships between people. As the celestial bodies move around in the universe, they have a corresponding impact on people’s lives, characters, and relationships. This belief system underpins the entire plot of The Luminaries, as is shown by the astral charts at the beginning of each section of the novel.
The key astrological correspondence in The Luminaries is the relationship between Anna and Staines. When Lydia learns that Anna and Staines were both born in Sydney on the very same day, she notes to Anna that she “may have an astral soul-mate, whose path through life perfectly mirrors [her] own” (716), showing that their time and place of birth connects them on an astral level. Lydia even uses the term “correspondences” to characterize the similarities between the two characters and their deep connection with one another. Anna and Staines appear to have an instant affinity for one another when they meet on the deck of the ship from Sydney to Dunedin. After they reconnect in Hokitika, their affection for one another only grows and they fall in love. Ultimately, their connection takes on a supernatural or otherworldly quality as events that happen to one of them also happens to the other. For instance, when Anna’s gun goes off, it injures Staines instead. Pickering, too, immediately concludes that this is what happened; upon learning of Staines’s injuries, Pickering says to himself that it was the “whore’s bullet” that caused them.
Other characters’ relationships, too, are associated with the correspondence between their astrological signs. For instance, in Chapter 2, which is titled “Jupiter in Sagittarius,” Balfour recounts that he does Lauderback’s bidding to support Lauderback’s run for parliament. Balfour is represented by the sign Sagittarius and Lauderback is represented by the planet Jupiter. In astrological beliefs, Jupiter is the ruling planet of Sagittarius. This is reflected in the relationship between Balfour and Lauderback, since Lauderback dominates Balfour. This is an example of how characters in the novel are linked to planets and astrological signs, reflecting the astrological belief in the influence of celestial bodies in human affairs. Sometimes the astral correspondences are more oblique in the novel, as when Staines, who is represented by the moon, is missing during the “month without a moon” in February (301), and he reappears when the moon returns in March.
Overall, the impact of astrological correspondences suggests that the characters are driven by the movements of and relationships between the Luminaries—the celestial bodies—rather than by their own free will. Also, the complex relationships between characters, mirrored by the astrological charts that precede each section of the novel, highlight the interconnectedness of people and events.
Class Mobility on the Colonial Frontier
In the 19th century, New Zealand was a frontier of the British Empire. During the gold rush, Europeans who came from poverty or the lower classes traveled there to achieve upward class mobility. For the colonized and marginalized, however, such as the Māori and women, New Zealand was a place of privation and hardship, as well as downward class mobility. These class dynamics are reflected in characters in The Luminaries.
The quintessential example of upward class mobility on the colonial frontier is Thomas Balfour, who is a shipping agent. He comes from “humble standing” in Kent, England, and he suffered hardships after the death of his father. He followed the gold rushes to California and Victoria, Australia, before heading to New Zealand, which is how he made his fortune. By the time Moody meets him, he is a comfortably wealthy, middle-aged man. Another European character in the novel who similarly achieves a better station in life is Aubert Gascoigne; he leaves France, where he lived on the margins as a child born out of wedlock and comes to the frontier for greater opportunity. While he is not as successful as Balfour, he has a comfortable middle-class life in Hokitika, working as a clerk in the courthouse. The banker Charlie Frost, born in New Zealand of European ancestry, similarly has arrived in Hokitika to have a better life than the poverty and privation he experiences as a child. In his family home, he only had two books: Paradise Lost and the Bible. When Frost comes into some money from the sale of Crosbie’s estate, he buys himself “a set of leather-bound histories” (182), which is a mark of his aspirations of upward mobility.
In contrast with these success stories of European men are those who are negatively impacted by colonialism, which results in their downward mobility. Among these are the Chinese workers Sook and Quee, who come from stable, middle-class families in Canton. After their city falls to the British Empire during the First Opium War, their families are left in ruins. Their fathers are dead, and Sook’s father’s warehouse is run by Carver. Quee is obliged to take on a contract of indentured servitude—which he cannot even read—to come to Hokitika and work for very low wages. He does not even get to keep the gold that he finds; instead, he is paid a percentage of what he finds. For Sook and Quee, the goldfields represent survival rather than an opportunity for betterment. Likewise, the Indigenous people of New Zealand also experience loss and suffering as a result of colonialism. For instance, Tauwhare’s people lose a large portion of their land. He is forced into subsistence wage labor as a guide for the Europeans who are taking advantage of his people’s former lands. When Tauwhare goes to place an ad in Löwenthal’s paper, Löwenthal notes that “the small pile of pennies and farthings showed plainly that he was in need of work” (371), highlighting Tauwhare’s poverty in this new colonial economy. The novel shows that women like Anna Wetherell, too, are negatively impacted by the political economy of the New Zealand goldfields. In Sydney, she had worked more comfortably in a hotel, but she ends up a drug-addicted sex worker in Hokitika.
For privileged European men, the New Zealand frontier offers an opportunity for them to improve their standing in the world. For those exploited by this system, it represents a place where they have to fight for their survival in circumstances far worse than those into which they were born.
Patriarchal Objectification and Control of Women
The women in The Luminaries are all subject to patriarchal objectification and control in different ways. Their opportunities are limited by the misogynistic society of the 19th-century British frontier in New Zealand. This is most clearly seen in the attitudes of all the men, with the exception of Staines, toward Anna, the sex worker. Mrs. Shepard is also subject to discrimination.
Anna is routinely described as a “whore” by the men in Hokitika, including Gascoigne, Shepard, and Lauderback. Even to Clinch, who is in love with Anna, she is little more than an object of desire. He does not recognize that she has her own interior life, and he feels entitled to tell her what to do; namely, to quit smoking opium. Mannering, for his part, is only concerned about her ability to work. When she is upset, he does not seek to comfort her but instead tells her: “Misery won’t do. Misery is bad for business” (805). Even those who occasionally display affection or concern for Anna, such as Reverend Devlin and Pritchard, treat her dismissively at other points. For example, when Anna forges Staines’s signature, Devlin says he will report her for the forgery, noting that “It would be the word of a minister against the word of a whore” (542). The only person who sees her as a whole person is Staines, since he loves her unconditionally.
The character of Anna Wetherell is in and of itself representative of the problematic trope of the “hooker with a heart of gold.” This form of stock character can be found throughout Western cultural products, including Émile Zola’s novel Nana (1880) and films like Pretty Woman (1990). This figure is a good, even saintly woman, who as the result of bad decisions or circumstances outside of her control, is obliged to do sex work. This trope portrays these women, and sex workers more generally, as lacking agency and shows them as victims of circumstance rather than as complex people in their own right.
Mrs. Shepard is another example of how women characters in the novel lack agency and are subject to patriarchal control. Mrs. Shepard is first shown as a victim of domestic abuse by her husband. When she murders him in self-defense, she is duty-bound to marry his brother, Governor Shepard. While he does not beat her as his brother did, he is emotionally abusive and controlling. The novel notes that “their marriage was to all appearances conducted in absolute silence, with a grim determination on his part, and a fearful inhibition on hers” (132). Even women like Mrs. Shepard who follow the rules of the patriarchal society are subjected to dismissal and control.
The Luminaries points out that the opportunities for women in 19th-century New Zealand frontier society are limited by the misogyny that surrounds them, regardless of the circumstances in which they find themselves. Anna is forced into sex work and then judged for her actions. Mrs. Shepard does the “right thing” by marrying but she is still subject to patriarchal control. Only Lydia, who uses her charms and wits, is capable of exercising some measure of independence.
