The Wishbone

Just a Little Snap

A wishbone hasn't been this complicated since that Thanksgiving where crazy Aunt Ida and blind uncle Karl fought over it and someone lost their false teeth in a pile of jellied cranberry sauce. Not a Thanksgiving tradition, exactly. Anyway, the wishbone in Daughter of Smoke and Bone symbolizes a lot.

But it doesn't seem to have a thing to do with wishes. Imagine that.

So just what does the wishbone stand for? Madrigal and Akiva used to break one every night after a little sexy time, as they hoped for a world in which their love wasn't forbidden. Akiva and Karou, a.k.a. Madrigal Incarnate, break a wishbone too in order to get Karou her memories, and her true identity back.

So the wishbone symbolizes hope, identity, and love. Great. Case closed.

Y-Bone?

Not so fast, Shmoopers. Take a closer look at what these couples are doing before snapping the wishbone. Not too close, we wanna keep this PG-13. But yes: they're getting busy.

Now, add in the fact that Brimstone, who counsels Karou on saving herself until she finds her soulmate, is also the one who keeps the wishbone around his neck for most of the novel. And there you have it: maybe, just maybe, this fragile, y-shaped bone is a big old symbol for virginity… and the feeling that you're going to be a totally different person after you lose it.

Karou refers to her own virginity as "the irretrievable" (3.25)—much in the same way that, once she finds out her true identity, she can never go back to being plain old "human" Karou again.
When Karou examines Brimstone's wishbone for the first time, she says, "Its frail wings fit between her fingers as if it were meant to be held" (22.4).

And not just held, but held carefully—protected. Kind of like your virginity, in many people's opinions. But before they break the wishbone, Karou and Akiva have a talk about it.

Is this something they really want to do? There's a moment of passion, some heated touching, then hesitation, more conversation. When Karou gave her virginity to Kazimir, she didn't give it much thought.

And other than make her angry at him, their sex didn't really change Karou. Her views on love and sex have changed since meeting Akiva, though. So when she considers doing it with Akiva (breaking the wishbone, we mean, of course), she believes it'll be a monumental occasion.

Maybe the moral of the story is: losing your virginity, or "making love" at all, to the person you're meant to be with is a really big deal. A much bigger, and much different deal, than sleeping with someone you don't care about.

How does being with Akiva change Karou… forever?