Chapter 7: Emilia – Summary and Analysis

Spoiler Warning

This summary and analysis contains key plot details from Chapter 7 of By Any Other Name. Proceed only if you have read the chapter or don’t mind major spoilers.

Summary

In 1582, thirteen-year-old Emilia Bassano hides in a library at court during a masque, dressed as a butterfly. She encounters young Henry Wriothesley, the Earl of Southampton, and teaches him to play the recorder before Lady Leighton finds her. At the masque, Emilia dances with Lord Hunsdon, the Queen’s cousin and the man to whom she has been bartered as a mistress. Their conversation reveals his unexpected kindness and her resigned wit.

Isabella continues Emilia’s training by taking her to a brothel to observe a sexual encounter through a peephole, then to an herbwoman for rue, a preventative against pregnancy. The next day Emilia moves into Hunsdon’s London house. He does not immediately bed her; instead, he shows her his orangery and treats her with gentleness. Emilia writes a poem likening herself to a newly trained falcon. She asks Hunsdon to take her out, and at a jousting tournament her outspokenness causes a minor scandal. Back home, she initiates sex; the act leaves her feeling detached, as if performing. Over subsequent months, Emilia reads the plays Hunsdon reviews as Lord Chamberlain, develops a critical eye, and becomes captivated by the theatre. When she finds a dull script by a playwright named William Shakespeare, she decides she could do better, then forgets his name.

Key Events

Emilia meets the young Earl of Southampton and gives him a music lesson while hiding from the masque.
Lady Leighton reminds Emilia of her pending role as Lord Hunsdon’s mistress.
Hunsdon and Emilia dance and share a flirtatious but candid exchange at court.
Isabella takes Emilia to watch a prostitute with a client, then buys rue from an herbwoman for both of them.
Emilia settles into Hunsdon’s home; he postpones consummation and gives her a tour of his orangery.
Emilia writes a poem comparing herself to a trained falcon that must obey its keeper.
At a tournament, Emilia is falsely accused of stealing a favor and speaks boldly in her own defense.
Emilia initiates sex with Hunsdon; during the act she dissociates, feeling like a performer on a stage.
Emilia begins reading play manuscripts from Hunsdon’s study and attending public theatre performances.
She dismisses a poorly written history play by William Shakespeare and believes she could craft better work.

Character Development

Emilia Bassano transitions from a reluctant adolescent learning the arts of a courtesan to a young woman who wields small acts of agency. She gains confidence through writing poetry and voicing her opinions on plays, yet she remains keenly aware that her body is a commodity. The chapter shows her learning to wear a mask—performing desire, wit, and acquiescence—while a separate inner self takes root, one that yearns to be a storyteller rather than a character in someone else’s plot.

Lord Hunsdon emerges as a complex figure. Far from the predatory stereotype, he is patient, self-deprecating, and genuinely curious about Emilia’s mind. He allows her time to adjust and even values her literary opinions. However, the age and power gap underscores the inescapable imbalance of their relationship; his kindness does not erase the fact that Emilia has been sold.

Isabella continues to serve as a pragmatic guide, emphasizing survival and the transactional nature of a woman’s life in this world.

Themes, Symbols, or Motifs

Performance and Identity

The entire chapter is saturated with theatricality. Emilia wears a butterfly costume, acts delighted during public outings, and later literally thinks of sex as a stage performance. Hunsdon’s role as licenser of plays mirrors the way he and society “license” Emilia’s behavior. Her eventual belief that she could write better plays than the men whose work she reads becomes both a rebellion and a reaffirmation of the performative cage she inhabits.

Power and Female Agency

Emilia’s body is a bargaining chip, yet she carves out small domains of control. She chooses when to initiate sex, asks to be taken out in public, and—most crucially—starts judging the scripts that cross Hunsdon’s desk. These moments don’t overturn her subjugation, but they plant the seeds for her later covert authorship.

The Falcon as Metaphor

After learning about imping—repairing a bird’s damaged feather so it can hunt for its master—Emilia writes a poem that openly compares herself to a haggard falcon. The bird is kept sharp and hungry, allowed to hunt only at its keeper’s command. Emilia wonders if the falcon has been captive so long it can no longer remember freedom. The image crystallizes her predicament: she is prized for her service but denied full sovereignty over her own life and creativity.

The Tyranny of the Male Pen

The chapter ends with Emilia reading a lifeless play by William Shakespeare. Her instinctive reaction—that she could do better—is cut off by her swift forgetting of his name. This moment functions as a motif for the erasure of female voices. The world of the theatre is closed to women as playwrights, yet Emilia’s critical eye suggests an innate talent that the era is not prepared to nurture.

Why This Chapter Matters

Chapter 7 marks Emilia’s definitive passage from childhood to her role as a kept woman, but more importantly it uncovers the gap between the person she must perform and the writer she longs to be. The kindness Hunsdon shows complicates what could have been a simple villainy, forcing the reader to reckon with a system that uses people kindly but firmly. Her first brush with Shakespeare’s work—and her dismissal of it—hints at the central dramatic question of the novel: what if the greatest plays came from a woman forced to hide her talent? The chapter lays the emotional and thematic foundation for Emilia’s journey toward clandestine authorship.

Study Questions and Answers

How does the falcon poem reflect Emilia’s internal conflict?
The poem depicts a bird trained to stoop on command, kept “sharp and passing empty” so it remains dependent on its keeper. Emilia sees herself in the falcon—coached to please Hunsdon, provided for yet confined. The poem is her first personal piece of writing, showing that even as she complies, a part of her questions whether she will ever again know freedom.
What does Emilia’s reaction to William Shakespeare’s play reveal about her character development?
By critiquing the stilted plot and then dismissing the author’s name, Emilia demonstrates emerging confidence in her own literary judgment. Her belief that she could produce better work signals a nascent rebellion against the gender barriers that prevent women from writing for the stage. Forgetting Shakespeare’s name both trivialises the man and foreshadows the novel’s alternative history.
How does Jodi Picoult use performance as a theme in this chapter?
Emilia is costumed as a butterfly, learns the lines of a courtesan, and stages her own seduction while mentally separating her true self from the act. Even public appearances at tournaments and the theatre require her to play the part of the charming companion. The boundary between reality and performance blurs, highlighting the constant dissimulation demanded of women in her position, yet also planting the idea that she might one day write her own script.