A new human connection of parabatai

A representative of the post-modernist current of the 2000 generation "Lady Midnight" is the first in a series of books "The Dark Artifices" by author Cassandra Clare, an American woman who focuses her writings on fiction for young adults and who is also the author of a famous series of novels: "The Mortal Instruments". The title of the book represents the name of a story that contains important clues in solving a mystery about the protagonist's parents. This lady is described as a woman with long dark hair, hence this resemblance to midnight, and who has the eyes specific to the Blackthorn family of a blue-green.

Before discovering the truth, the name of Annabel Lee appears, making a correlation with the name of Annabel Blackthorn, who is the absent character, the reason for all the events described and unfolded in the opera.

The novel falls into the genre of writing for young adults, fantasy, paranormal and romance. The narrative discourse is in the third person, an objective perspective, with an omniscient narrator, who is not involved in the events unfolding in the opera.

The themes found in the novel are the theme of the family, the theme of love and the theme of death. There are often motives such as revenge, the motif of symbolic, enchanted objects, astral motifs, the motif of kissing and dreaming, and the motif of the sea. Reality is often combined with fiction. The compositional structure is 27 chapters with representative titles, which highlights the technique of the auto textual summary: "A Sepulchre in This Kingdom", "Many Far Wiser", "Neither the Angels in Heaven" etc. In some of the chapter there are even flashbacks.

The genesis of the work is represented by the poem Annabel Lee, written by Edgar Allan Poe, which is highlighted at the end of the novel, the author mentioning that the names of the chapters are inspired by the poem, the most obvious ones: "The Moon Never Beams Without Bringing Me Dreams", "And she was a child", "The Angels Not Half So Happy". The whole poem is capitalized as clues in solving the mystery of the death of the protagonist's parents. Through the technique of intertextuality are found whole stanzas of the poem in the opera.

The beginning of the work, i.e. the prologue, brings to light the place and time of the action: Los Angeles, 2012, along with the name of the protagonist and two key characters. Emma Carstairs is the main character of this opera, being a 17-year-old girl, shadow hunter, with long blond hair and brown eyes. From the very beginning, she is given an indirect characterization, through her deeds and actions, because she walks alone in the Shadow Square, a place full of dangerous supernatural creatures. This reveals her bold nature and indifference to the rules of the Conclave (the government of the Nephilim). Emma suffered a tragedy because of her parents, who died. She dedicated her life to finding out the truth about their deaths, the Conclave saying that they died at the hands of an evil shadow hunter.

The shadow hunters are: "Half man, half angel, the undisputed masters of all supernatural creatures on earth"(32). They use drastic training, magical objects and runes ("witchcraft seals that gave them strength" and can only be used by them) inscribed on their skin with the help of stars, magical writing tools from Adamas. The key characters, Johnny Rook and Kit, father and son, appear quite rarely during the actions of the opera, but they are quite important in the unfolding of events, because Johnny has information about the life of the infamous or the life of the mundane, i.e. people and people with supernatural powers and is able to sell them to anyone who has anything to offer in return, including Emma. Thanks to him, the action to find out the truth about the girl's parents and what causes the crimes in the city begins.