How Erin Morgenstern’s “The Night Circus” and William Butler Yeats’ “The Green Helmet and Other Poems” Depict Familial and Forbidden Love Molly Nagle 12th Grade

Love - both familial and forbidden - are integral themes complexly explored throughout The Night Circus (2011), and selected poetry by W.B Yeats (1908). Where forbidden love is a deeply rooted theme in The Night Circus between Celia and Marco who are involuntarily “bound to” each other in a “challenge”, Yeats wrote numerous poems dedicated to Maud Gonne, who never reciprocated his affections. Furthermore, familial love has been depicted by Yeats in poems such as A Prayer For My Daughter where he shares his wishes for her. Conflictingly, in The Night Circus a more complex, and abusive relationship is explored between Celia and her father.

The Night Circus follows the relationship of Marco and Celia, two illusionists pitted against each other in a challenge. The convoluted relationship between Celia and Prospero, her father, can be summarised by the profanic use of the phrase “well, fuck” at their meeting, following Celia’s mother’s suicide. As a young girl, she is described as “a well-loved small dog”, and is used as an accessory. As she grows, their relationship dramatically skewers and becomes arguably unconventional - he begins to abandon her in “hotel rooms” and engages in training during the days. Their relationship becomes...