By Any Other Name

Throughout the novel, the game of chess symbolizes agency or lack thereof. As a young girl, Emilia is saddened and disturbed to hear her guardians arguing over who will take her and the revelation that neither wants to be responsible for her. She imagines herself as “the little dark pawn on the chessboard, being moved around at the whims of whoever was playing the game” (24). Like the weakest piece in the game, the pawn, she is subject to the whims of others and can be sacrificed for their causes. She continues to think about this symbol when she goes to Denmark and sees a play performed. In this play, an early version of the legend that will become Hamlet, the queen has no voice and no name. Emilia thinks “of the unnamed woman in the play and wondered what became of her. If she, too, might be driven mad by being a pawn in someone else’s game” (40). She sees parallels between herself and the woman since they are both helpless and at the mercy of other people’s desires. Emilia’s character arc involves learning to take control of her life and, despite difficult circumstances, exert what power she can.