Part 3 Questions

1)   During the 13-year anniversary of the circus, the twins Poppet and Widget realize that Mr. A H- has no shadow, which seems to haunt Chandresh throughout Part III until he finally attempts to kill A. H- at the end, failing horribly. Celia and Marco fall deeper in love as the years continue, and Isabel continues to try to remain unaware until finally it is explicitly given to her. Finally, Bailey is still in the future, and his chapters follow him as he goes to the circus and interacts greatly with Poppet and Widget until finally he is told it is necessary to join the circus.

As Part III goes on, it is revealed in very subtle ways how the plot changes. When a one-sided argument arises between Marco and A.H-, right after Celia and Marco spend time together, the need to quit is shown to begin growing inside Marco. “’I am done playing your game,’ Marco says. ‘I quit’” (308) is what is said to A. H- at the end of the conversation, which is then repeated in a different manner to Celia as a plea to escape. Specifically, Marco says to Celia “Come away with me…Anywhere. Away from the circus, away from Alexander and your father” (350), showing how he wants to quit the game. Another plot shown is how Chandresh becomes obsessed with finding out about what is going on with the circus and who exactly Mr. A. H- is. At one point in Part III, Chandresh invades Marco’s personal office, even breaking into a lock with a knife to find out his secrets. He then confronts Marco when he arrives, saying “You’re doing something to all of us, aren’t you?” (328). Although Marco makes him forget about the entire conversation, telling him “You are going to return to your drinking and your parties and you will not even remember that we had this conversation” (329), Chandresh still has an ominous feeling about Mr. A. H- after the Murray twins’ comment during the party of the 13th anniversary (“That man has no shadow” (310)). This continues to build until the final chapter of the Third Part, where Chandresh follows Mr. A. H- throughout the circus until finally he attempts to murder him, instead killing Theissen in the process. These are two of the many subtle plots found within the Third Part of this book. The time period and setting help to create the moods in the plots through keeping the mystery and not allowing technology to find out what is going on. Everything in the story seems very classy, especially Celia and Marco, and the time period helps that, as they can appear much “classier” without seeming very strange. When inferring within this book about what is going on, many times it is needed to figure out what someone is feeling, or how someone feels about something. Occasionally, an inference is necessary to figure out that something is affecting something else, such as the charm Isobel created. When first introduced, the reader is not told what is it for, and they can only infer, with help mainly from the quote “And Isobel herself has been helping to keep it balanced. Helping him. Helping them both” (365). It isn’t until much later that the reader is told that it is for the circus, and so the must infer as to what the charm was over.

3)   Based on what is written within the third part of ‘The Night Circus’ by Erin Morgenstern, Morgenstern is trying to tell the reader that humans are desperate creatures who will try to find a purpose for everything, including feelings of love or ominous hints at a darker meaning. Two stories of romance are explored within this part, with Celia and Marco as well as Poppet and Bailey. Although the romance between Celia and Marco continues to grow, as it evolves from touching each other on the hand for seconds at a time to a scene where they can’t get their hands off each other, the romance between Bailey and Poppet is only just beginning, and it seems to help Bailey connect what he is to do with his life. Right after Poppet kisses Bailey, in fact, it is stated in the text that “…Bailey knows in that moment that he will follow her anywhere” (360). This clears out the mystery of whether or not he would have followed the circus, technically “joining” it. The ominous hints, however, learn more towards Chandresh and his obsession with trying to figure out what is wrong with the circus and those involved, mainly Mr. A. H-. He was not the only one, however, as Tara and Lainie Burgess both tried to figure out what was going on, with it ending in Tara’s death. What mainly causes Chandresh to become intrigued in the circus and those involved is when Widget makes the comment “That man has no shadow” (310) when referring to Mr. A. H- whilst at the 13th anniversary party. After a while, he tries to sneak into Marco’s room to figure out what is truly happening in his circus, and he becomes incredibly suspicious when he finds the leather-bound book with all of the circus members’ hair in it. He then says to Marco, “You’re doing something to it, to all of us, aren’t you?” (328), where afterward Marco forces him to forget it ever happened. When Lainie became intrigued about what was truly happening within the circus, she finds out through Celia, who never tells her the full story. She, however, has learned not to ask too far, as she lost her sister for that very reason.