By Any Other Name

“She studied Molière and Mamet, Marlowe and Miller. She took apart the language and the structure of their plays with the intensity of a grandmaster chess champion whose understanding of the game determined success.”

While Emilia imagines herself as a pawn moved across the chess board, Melina sees herself as a “grandmaster chess champion.” The difference between their self-perception has to do with the periods they live in. For Emilia, women have little agency whereas Melina believes she can succeed.

“Emilia took the memories out regularly, like silver that had to be polished, lest you become unable to see the intricacies of its pattern.”

Separated from her family and orphaned at a young age, Emilia envisions her memories as old household silver. They must be “polished,” or it will cloud, and the memories will be forgotten. These memories, like silver brought out on special occasions, are not a part of her daily life, but something she cherishes as her only inheritance from her parents.

“She thought of the little dark pawn on the chessboard, being moved around at the whims of whoever was playing the game.”

Unlike Melina, who sees herself as a grandmaster of the game, Emilia believes she is “the little dark pawn” moved “at the whims” of others. The least powerful piece on the board, the pawn is often sacrificed in schemes. Emilia has little control over her own life.

“The Queen’s lips curved, the same smile that Eve had tossed over her shoulder at Adam, that had been used by the Sirens in Ancient Greece, that Medusa gave a moment before turning a man to stone. ‘La puissance,’ she said. Power.”

While the young Emilia thinks of sexuality as a curse, the queen explains that is a woman’s power. The use of Eve and the sirens evokes the temptations of sex. However, Medusa kills men with her gaze, a reminder that power can also destroy.

“‘You’ve been to a masque, yes?’ Emilia nodded. ‘Then you know what it is to play at being someone you are not. We are all actors, cara.’”

Isabella counsels Emilia to think of herself as an actor, who plays “at being someone you are not.” She thinks being a man’s mistress is no different than acting in a play and advises Emilia to act in her own interests. This motif of acting continues throughout the novel, and Emilia frequently feels that there is little difference between acting on stage and playing a social role as a woman.

“Two well-dressed women in this part of town were an anomaly, but that wasn’t why the men were staring. It was Isabella’s lush figure and low-cut dress, Emilia’s striking eyes and dark hair. To these men, they were sweets on a shelf just out of reach.”

This passage compares Isabella and Emilia to “sweets,” emphasizing the way that the men looking at them think of them as objects to be consumed. Furthering the objectification, the quote splits up the women’s bodies into separate features. Rather than seeing them as whole human beings, the men passing by think of them in pieces.

“There was a silver-handled brush on a dressing table and bottles of perfume and a filigreed hand mirror. There was so much air and light in the room that Emilia felt as if she were flying. If this was a cage, it was a beautiful one.”

Throughout the novel, Picoult develops the motif of birds of prey to represent women’s autonomy. Here Emilia is a bird in a “cage,” but she recognizes the luxury around her. This passage shows how she grapples with her lack of freedom but also understands that she must take enjoyment and pleasure where she can, even within a cage.

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players, she told herself. Emilia knew that at the end of a play the actors shed the skin of their craft and became the truer versions of themselves. It was the same now.”

In a line from Shakespeare’s As You Like It, Emilia thinks of the world as a stage that people perform on. Isabella has counseled her to think of her role as a mistress as an act, and she continues to do so. She understands that the social roles that she and many others occupy are a kind of play-acting separate from their real feelings.

“It was not the sex that made her uncomfortable. Emilia understood now that her body was an instrument. It was her soul that was the melody, and that was hers alone.”

In this passage, Emilia imagines her body as “an instrument.” Like a musician makes a living from their instrument, her body is a tool she uses to earn her way in life. The real “melody” is her soul, which she conceals from everyone. This passage underscores her alienation and the way she has chosen to survive.

“That night she dreamed of Hunsdon’s falcon, hollow-boned and light. Emilia gave the order and watched the bird soar from the gauntlet, trailing her jesses. But the leather unraveled from the falcon’s anklet, and Emilia stared at the sky, watching the bird fly away, growing smaller and smaller until it scraped the face of the sun.”

After meeting Mary Sidney and realizing that women could write plays, Emilia dreams of the falcon escaping its jesses. Her desire for freedom is represented by the falcon’s flight and she imagines it going so high that it “scraped the face of the sun.” While she cannot physically escape, she begins to see her writing as a way to attain inner freedom.

“Her play about Emilia Bassano’s life wasn’t meant to be a fiction; it was meant to be the resurrection of an erasure, like the reveal of Mary Sidney Herbert’s invisible ink. Just the fact that history books hadn’t included this version of events didn’t make it untrue; it merely underscored who’d controlled the narrative.”

Melina believes that her play is a “resurrection” for Mary Sidney Herbert and Emilia. Using what she learned in a long-ago history class, she thinks about history as a “narrative” that can be “controlled” by someone. Fulfilling the first chapter’s comparison of her to a chess grandmaster, Melina is entering the game to wrest back control for the women forgotten.

“Jasper often felt like he had been dropped into a life-size board game without anyone giving him a set of rules. If he knew what was expected, he could memorize it and act accordingly. Otherwise, he invariably made a misstep.”

Jasper’s neurodivergence means that he is often misunderstood by others. He tries to “memorize and act” as he is supposed to, but he doesn’t understand the game’s rules. Like Emilia, he thinks of society as a play that requires different roles, but he struggles to understand his own.

“‘I can’t undo what I’ve already done,’ Melina said. ‘But I’m not the first author to pretend to be a man just to get traction in her career. The Brontës did it. George Eliot. George Sand. J. K. Rowling.’

‘Maybe that’s why she doesn’t understand gender,’ Andre muttered. ‘But the point is, Mel, we all know who those writers are now. They eventually revealed themselves. You…you’re erasing yourself.’”

Mel tries to defend her use of Andre’s pseudonym by naming other writers who did so. However, Andre points out that they revealed their identities, and that she is “erasing” herself. This passage highlights Mel’s struggle to make herself visible and open herself up to criticism.

“I am a Jew, she wrote, and even putting those words on paper sent a shiver down Emilia’s spine.”

After a lifetime of hiding her religion in the face of persecution, Emilia uses the character of Shylock to humanize Jewish people. However, even writing the fictional character feels dangerous to her, because of how brutally Jewish people were tortured and killed in Elizabethan England. This passage underscores the fact that Shylock’s characterization is unusually empathetic for a Christian in England to write at the time.

“As it turned out, you could take the pound of flesh without the blood. You could remove your heart, and still feel its broken pieces rattling inside.”

Emilia imagines her broken heart as the “pound of flesh” extracted in A Merchant of Venice. While the punishment was intended to kill, Emilia will live on after losing her lover. Instead, she feels numb, as if her heart’s “broken pieces” are still “rattling inside.”

“For God’s sake, the miscommunication was Shakespearean in scope—like Friar John quarantined with the plague so Romeo doesn’t get the missive saying Juliet’s only playing dead. Like Antony, given false news that Cleopatra has died, then trying to kill himself.”

The miscommunication and twists of the contemporary plot echo the twists in Shakespeare’s plays. Picoult, through Jasper, highlights that connection here. However, unlike the abovementioned plays, Melina and Jasper’s story does not end in tragedy and their romance survives the miscommunication.

“How she’d thought that their relationship had transcended race and gender because none of that mattered when you found your best friend. She wasn’t the racist, egocentric monster Jasper had made her out to be. But, Melina realized, she wasn’t not one, either.”

At this moment, Melina looks at herself and realizes that she has been unfair to Andre. Though she has spent the novel championing women’s rights, she neglected to think about Andre’s struggles as a gay Black man. Here she takes ownership of her flaws and resolves to do better.

“Lady Clifford caught her eye. ‘You look as if you’ve discovered the philosopher’s stone.’

‘Mayhap,’ Emilia said, ‘there is more than one way to achieve eternal life.’”

The mythical philosopher’s stone, in alchemy, grants the bearer immortality. Emilia thinks of her work as a kind of philosopher’s stone, which will allow her to achieve “eternal life.” Ironically, the poems published under her name are not well-remembered, but the words she writes under Shakespeare’s live on and are praised throughout the centuries.

“For years Emilia had felt like the sole occupant of a lighthouse, sending a beam toward him over the dark ocean. For years there had been no response. And now? To know that her words had not only reached him but guided him to her shore?”

This passage figures Emilia’s plays as the beacon of a lighthouse, signaling her love over a dark ocean. She is ecstatic to realize that Southampton has heard her. Tragically, this short-lived joy is the last moment of togetherness the lovers will share in their lives. 

“Sometimes, Melina would wake from a dream in which she’d written her own instruction book: How to be happy. But every time she peeked inside the pamphlet, it was blank.”

Though Melina has found a career writing all kinds of instructions, happiness eludes her. In her dreams, the empty pamphlet represents her struggle to find happiness. Ultimately, her happiness is achieved when her play is performed and praised, ensuring that she and Emilia are remembered.

“Very slowly, he reached for her hand. ‘I made a bigger table,’ Jasper said quietly, ‘but I’ve been saving a seat for you.’”

Jasper reveals that he took Melina’s words to heart. He has “made a bigger table” to include those traditionally excluded from the theater world. However, in a gesture of love, he tells her that he has been “saving” a seat for her and wants her play to be performed at the theater. This moment highlights his character’s transformation from perceived villain to a heroic character who has repented of and learned from his mistakes.

“They were tangible proof that, once, she had been beloved. That she had loved. She liked to think that Southampton, wherever he was now, was watching. That he knew, too, they were finally together.”

At the end of her life, Emilia sees the miniatures as “tangible proof” of her love with Southampton. Though they could not be together in life, the portraits remain together in her possession. This is the only happy ending available to the lovers, who were separated by social status.

“But when her eyes adjusted, it was not Southampton at all. It was Kit, arms folded, impatient, as if he’d been there for a while. ‘Oh,’ Emilia cried. ‘I’ve missed you.’”

Though Emilia imagines that she will be reunited with Southampton in death, she is greeted instead by Kit Marlowe, her closest friend. This reunion de-emphasizes romantic love and shows that friendship is the true deep and lasting love in Emilia’s life. Their platonic relationship was the one place where Emilia could be truly and honestly herself.