Novels in Confinement: The Good, Bad and Ugly
Analyzing the different sides of confinement through A Gentleman in Moscow, Piranesi and Jane Eyre
At some point in everyone’s lives, the world can shrink. Whether it’s a lockdown, a hospital room, or seasonal depression, do we wait for it to be over, or do we look more closely? In those quiet, quarantined stretches of time, what did it mean to us to live fully when our movement was so restricted?
Last week on The Novel Tea podcast, we discussed A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles. This book tries to tackle the theme of confinement from a positive perspective, which paints a fun picture for readers, but as we all learned from our own quarantine period during the pandemic, confinement comes with its darker moments as well. In this newsletter, I will be talking about the different sides of confinement through multiple novels.
Recently, we made a few changes to our newsletter! The Novel Tea Newsletter will now be posted on Wednesdays, and we will be offering an exciting new series for paid subscribers: Spill the Novel Tea. In these installments, you’ll hear all about the books Shruti and I are reading, our reflections, and how they might be in conversation with one another.
The Good: Charm in Confinement
“If a man does not master his circumstances, then he is bound to be mastered by them.”
A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles
In A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles, Count Alexander Rostov is sentenced to live at the Metropol Hotel for the rest of his life. His once grand hotel suite has been diminished to a small room in the attic, and he is stripped of all his family heirlooms and belongings. The whole world suddenly isolated to four walls, the same familiar faces, and views of the outdoor world that can never again be explored.
Preservation is a key theme throughout this novel. Count Rostov refuses to let his world die, so he preserves his memories by looking closely at the things he loves: wine, poetry, conversation, food, and rituals. He becomes a guardian of the “old world” and the ways before the Bolshevik regime, but doesn’t cling to the past as much as he decides to carry these joyful things forward with grace.
We see him becoming happy by connecting his current imprisonment to his childhood home, allowing himself to become vulnerable to the hotel guests around him, and continually working on himself as a friend, lover, and parent. If Count Rostov teaches us anything, it’s that freedom is not in movement, but in mindset. This novel helps open your eyes to the control we do have in our day-to-day happiness, and although our purpose can sometimes shrink in scale, it can also grow in meaning.
The Bad: Delusion in Confinement
This part of the newsletter contains spoilers for the book Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, skip ahead to the next section if you want!
In Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, the main character lives in a House that is beautiful and mysterious. It is full of labyrinthine corridors, intimidating statues, crashing tides, and is seemingly never-ending. The main character is devoted to this House, and believes that his confinement here is noble and will provide meaning to himself and others in time.
Unknowing to him, Piranesi has been trapped and manipulated into this House, and has forgotten so much of his true identity that he believes he has found perfect solace in this imprisonment. He has been so conditioned to love his prison that he no longer remembers what freedom even feels like.
Piranesi challenges the idea of possible charm in confinement. Not all limitations are wise, and not all stillness is healing. We hear the word “mindfulness” all the time, and though I agree it can be a powerful practice, it can also turn to something darker. Being present is something that can ground us, but I think it can also be a way of making people feel like they should be content with what hurts. Piranesi has been tricked into thinking he is happy, when his lack of self is actually preventing him from escaping. We need a peace that doesn’t sedate us, but a peace that strengthens us to move forward.
The Ugly: Darkness in Confinement
After the pandemic, the idea of confinement isn’t just literary or metaphorical. It could be something that some of us do not look forward to reminiscing about because it brings back painful memories.
In The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, the narrator is locked in a room under the guise of healing. In her forced stillness, she begins to lose her sense of reality and becomes obsessed with the pattern of the wallpaper. Similarly, in Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, young Jane is silenced in the red room where she is left to her own imagination, which eventually becomes too much for her to handle. In both stories, confinement becomes a method to control and suppress voices.
It’s not just the lack of movement in a confined space, but the lack of choice, connection, or being seen that shows its dark side. It can bring pressure, the silence can become heavy, and anxieties can build. However, this darkness can teach us something, too. Speaking out about our issues should be encouraged, and tough times should not just be endured, but respected and acknowledged.
Confinement can represent a peace, a quiet unraveling, or a cage. For some, like Count Rostov, it becomes crucial for personal growth, but in others, like Piranesi or Jane Eyre, it can be a slow erosion of one’s self. We may not always emerge from small spaces wider, but we do emerge changed. One thing that being quarantined in the pandemic taught us it’s that there will always be a balance of beauty and ache, or presence and loss.
—Neha
Up Next
Next week, we are so excited to be releasing our first Jane Austen episode, where we will be discussing Emma. This episode is as entertaining as Emma herself, and we cannot wait for you to tune in to listen. The episode will be out on April 30th, 2025.
Links We Love
7 Reasons I Panned Your Book -
talks about the reasons why he, as a critic, might give you a bad review. We loved reading and thinking through this essay, and it’s got us reflecting on what, for us, makes a book good or not (and how much of that is personal preference vs. literary value).- writes about the sexual politics of Sally Rooney
Why we love stories about messy rich people -
dissects the ‘rich people problems’ books we all love and offers insight into why that might be, by proposing a choice vs. no choice dichotomy in novels
Looking forward to Emma!
This comes at a very good time for me - on the one hand I crave time in a room by myself as a busy mum (to read mostly!), and on the other I am working as a junior doctor on a psychiatric intensive care unit where I'm seeing the horrible effects of secluding patients for months at a time amd seriously questioning the morality of doing it. Agency and control are clearly key, yet Piranesi and a gentleman in Moscow managed to find contentment when it was outside their control... really interesting description of Piranesi - who's to say that he should try to escape if he's found genuine meaning and contentment- is that just our perspective from our particular set of norms on the outside? Thanks for your work!