The Amber Brooch

The delicate antique amber brooch that Ciaran gives the narrator to mark their first Christmas together symbolizes the gift of will power, animal strength, and courage. The brooch marks the high point in the narrator’s relationship, the moment when love appears ready to work out. Amber is significant in Ciaran’s Nordic/Scandinavian culture. Like a rabbit’s foot or a Christian cross or a four-leaf clover, amber is carried to bolster spiritual confidence, courage in the face of stressful and difficult times. Ciaran’s handwritten message that accompanies the brooch reassures the narrator that she is a “beautiful woman” (63) and that Ciaran, despite his lingering feelings for Freja, loves her. The brooch thus symbolizes Ciaran’s determination early on to gift the narrator with courage and make her into somebody he thinks she needs to be. When the narrator first unwraps the...