Rouge: A Novel

This section of the novel features escalating tension and rising action. Mira becomes closer to understanding what Rouge is and what happens there. This culminates with her first treatment, which involves watching her memory of meeting Seth in her mother’s mirror. Again, Awad gradually reveals details about Rouge, Mira’s past, and Noelle to maintain suspense. Awad is drawing on a fairy tale structure, in which things happen in threes—for example, Cinderella attends the ball three times, and the evil queen in “Snow White” successfully kills Snow White on her third try. This treatment at Rouge is the first of three, and like traditional fairy tales, no harm comes from it. As such, Awad relies on fairy tale tropes to build suspense as she nears Mira’s third treatment.

While the narrative switches from second-person to first-person point of view after the Prologue, Mira’s narration includes periodic uses of second-person. For example, when describing the red shoes preventing her from walking up the stairs toward the woman in red at La Maison de Méduse, she notes: “You know when you’re in a dream and you’re trying to run and suddenly you can’t run right or you can only run slowly? When what was solid ground suddenly feels like sucking mud beneath your feet? That’s how it feels to go up these stairs” (72). In this passage, the second-person involves the reader directly, relating Mira’s experience to a more general one. This technique grounds the reader as the events of the novel switch from reality to magic and horror, encouraging the audience to suspend their disbelief even as Mira experiences increasingly unbelievable events.

Awad also includes visceral sensory details that describe how Mira feels as she interacts with Rouge. For example, when the male twin speaks to her, she notes: “I feel his voice in my vertebrae,” and when the female twin touches Mira’s skin, “a black box, locked tight, rattles” (75). Statements like this have two main effects. First, they create narrative intimacy as Mira describes the feelings in her body, both physically and mentally. Second, they increase the novel’s ominous tone. Before the reader learns about the horrors of Rouge, Mira’s visceral reactions foreshadow the eventual reveal of what the spa is doing. Awad builds these visuals through specific word choices. “Vertebrae” rather than back or spine connotes anatomy and science, conveying a sense of alienation. A black box often refers to recording devices on airplanes that are used to investigate crashes and accidents, so this specific metaphor, while also evoking a lock box, refers to secrets in Mira’s past that she has buried deeply. The box rattles, indicating that these secrets will soon come to light.

This section also features instances of Mira understanding the link between memories and present events. While Seth’s involvement with Rouge is not revealed until later in the novel, Awad blends several past and present details to foreshadow the later reveal. For example, when Mira observes the interior of Le Maison de la Méduse, she reflects on how similar it is to her favorite childhood story: “This castle by the sea, I asked Mother. What did it look like inside? Oh, you wouldn’t believe this place, Mother said. Great halls like labyrinths […] The grandest chandelier you ever saw” (105). Awad thus creates a connection between Mira’s memories and her current situation. This passage also prompts a question of when Noelle first became involved with Rouge. There are two key reasons the melding of past and present is important in the novel. First, it relates to the theme of Childhood’s Impact on Self-Esteem. It creates a sense of inevitability that Mira would end up at Rouge because her mother did, and parents’ influence shapes their children’s senses of self, well into adulthood. Second, it foreshadows the importance of memory in Rouge’s operations and the removal of souls as “extractions.” While the treatments bring up repressed memories, they also decrease brain function in the present, leaving the recipients more vulnerable to Rouge’s influence.