When Women Were Dragons

Knots come to represent the complex intertwining of familial ties, bonds, responsibilities, time, and memory. They symbolize the ways in which people are often connected and bound, sometimes to their detriment. The most specific use of knots throughout the novel is as a force of suppression, for Bertha Green actively uses ceremonial knots to magically bind and suppress the potential of herself, Alex, and Beatrice to transform into dragons. In this context, knots serve as active self-denial and are inextricably linked with the theme of Emotional Repression and Censorship of Taboo Topics that pervades the novel. Knots paradoxically represent both security and confinement—and sometimes, as Alex notes, it is hard to distinguish the difference between the two, for just as there is no way to avoid society’s displeasure at women’s attempts to be free, there is no real way for individual women to fully abandon family or responsibility, even in the effort to become something else.

Ironically, knots sometimes come to represent another kind of freedom in the very nature of their restriction. Bertha tells Alex that “a good knot requires the presence of mind to make and can act as an unshakable force in a shaky, unstable world” (50). With this statement, Bertha acknowledges the safety to be found in the fact that family members are bound to one another, or as is the case in Alex’s family, the secrets kept from children and questions left unanswered, while ultimately harmful, are initially intended to protect them. In any case, the bonds that hold people together are not formed without serious consequences, and sometimes, the metaphorical knots that tie families together are precisely the salvation that is needed. This alternate interpretation becomes apparent in the spiritual bonds that Alex forges as she builds a new family with Marla and the other dragons upon their eventual return to the community.