Summary Of The Night Circus, By Erin Morgenstern

5) Describe the setting and time period of your novel and how it affects the tone/theme/plot

The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern stretches from the end of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth. It was definitely a time of innovation, but the advancements were nowhere close to modern day’s. The people were not slaves to their bright little screens, bor did the waste hours like drooling zombies in front of their televisions. Leisure took other forms: carnivals, theater, and most enticing: circuses. These things have faded away to the periphery in modern leisure. Our youth has been reduced to nothing but screens and keyboards. By reversing time, Morgenstern yanks us back to a time when children spend the entirety of their

The circus is entirely black and white. Every tent, prop, costume is perfectly designed to fit the theme. Despite the miserable connotation to such colors, the circus is no purgatory. It’s almost as if they rip away every shred of familiarity and you walk in the land of dreams,“like stepping into a fairy tale under a curtain of stars” (143). The lack of vibrant colors makes it as if nothing is real, like you step into another dimension. Of course, outside the circus, Morgenstern utilizes color like a crazy little girl with pain all over her fingers as she dresses her gorgeous Celia in dresses that change color depending on the person she is closest to or the contortionist whose entire body is covered in tattoo

Be so as it may, the story is the result of a game their masters brew. They set their apprentices against each other like dogs and told them to fight. Only, there are no rules. The spend years creating tents full of magic, doing the impossible, screaming, crying, and falling in love. The surprise was the ending of such an epic game - they disappear. Their souls, their spirits, bond to the circus giving it a life source and keeping the lovers together forever. “They are the circus. You can hear his footsteps in the Labyrinth. You can smell her perfume in the Cloud Maze” (379). I was prepared to watch one die, to watch one triumph,. For tears and cries and fury, but not this. Yet it is very fitting, almost perfect. They spent their entire lives build the circus, it is only right they are sustained forever by