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Chapter 4
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in A Court of Thorns and Roses, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Love and Pain
Compassion, Respect, and Difference
Responsibility and Sacrifice
Art, Beauty, and Poverty
Summary
Analysis
The beast leads Feyre to a mare who looks shockingly calm, given that the beast could destroy her with one swipe. Feyre mounts, and the horse follows the beast north. As she rides, Feyre worries. Is there a loophole in the Treaty that will allow the beast to enslave her, when it otherwise forbids human slavery? Where might she find an ash tree to somehow get her family another arrow? Where does this beast live in Prythian, anyway? His horse’s saddle suggests he’s somewhat “civilized,” but no humans know much about Prythian or how faeries live these days. Prythian is ruled by seven High Lords, and especially right now, it makes no sense to Feyre why humans continued to live just south of the wall after the war.
The horse’s demeanor is an early clue that Feyre may be wrong about the beast. The horse is a vulnerable prey animal, one that would be anxious in the presence of any animal or person she believed actually meant her harm. Feyre continues to question her beliefs about faeries and Prythian as she comments on how “civilized” the saddle suggests things are in Prythian. It becomes clear that Feyre expected the beast to just be a brutal, animalistic beast—but perhaps he’s more than that.
Themes
Feyre managed to get out of her cottage with a hunting knife, but she’s too afraid for her family’s wellbeing to kill the beast. Unable to identify his weak spots anyway, she tries to ask his name. She smells metal—the smell of magic—and passes out. She wakes up two days later from an enchanted sleep, when they reach the gates of the beast’s estate.
Themes
