The Iron Trial In Ayn Rand's An Inspector Call

The title is significant because the Iron Trial is something that defines the main character’s life in this book. Call has been dreading it since before he could remember, his father says that if he passes he will surely die. For the Trail is a test as to whether you have magical capabilities. Call’s mother died because of the school and his father tells him he will join her if he passes. So he takes the trial and is the first person ever to get negative points. However, his horrendous score attracts the attention of Master Rufus who decided to let him into the school. He is forced to go to the school that will surely kill him. Most of the book focuses on the Iron Trial and its aftermath. If I were to rename it, I would call it Chaos Devors.

The dark power and a major theme in this book is chaos magic - wicked, demonic powers that devour. The rules of the elemental magic in the book are states on page 59, “Fire wants to burn, water wants to flow, air wants to rise, earth wants to bind, chaos wants to devour.”
The mains character’s point of view drastically shifts over the course of the novel, changing him and everything that defines him.

In the beginning, he hates his unfortunate life and the school and he is quite wretched. Yet, there is definitely an impetus for change: his own magic. He finds himself setting things on fire or losing control of the earth. As he learns to control his abilities he finds soft solace in the damp, blue caves. He finds children who suffer losses just like his, who have powers just like his, and, perhaps most significantly, he finds peace. When he fights wyverns with his new found friends or when he creates balls of fire with them, there is a sense of peace he did not have before. Indeed, as the books plays out, he embraces this magical life and truly becomes a mage. A line I found very endearing (and slightly wicked) in this novel supports this concept. “And despite himself, despite the terrible thing he was doing, despite all of it, Call began to grin.” This is the last sentence of the book, on page 295, closing a very good book. Even though magic is supposed to be bad, even though he is supposed to hate the mages, and even though he has dark chaos in his blood, Call is content and maybe even

happy.
I always listen to music when I read. Always. Personally, I fell in love with film before I became absorbed by books. In film, there is beautiful music that defines a scene. Music that makes you feel joy, or sadness, or numbness. If you where to watch these scene without that soundtrack, it would just be dull, black and white story. Music expands the world. I have playlists - designed for reading - filled with sad songs happy songs, songs for fight scenes or wars. I refer to these playlist when reading. A few of these tracks I kept on repeat while reading. The majority of the songs I used where dark, here are a few I found to be particularly appropriate: “Help I’m Alive,” a song by Metric that many writers use when writing scenes involving darker material. Call gives off a very wicked aura and indeed he can also act that way. He is lost that this song really does portray his black heart emotions in the beginning of the book. The seconds is a more upbeat song I used for when he was happy = “Marilyn” by G-Eazy. Call does not find great love and joy in his new school. Yet he becomes content, a bit happy. The school becomes a good place, a magical one. I almost want to quote the last sentence of the book book again to prove this point, but I will use one from page 234 instead to further this concept, “Call and Tamara joined in with enthusiasm. It was fun, focusing on lifting a flaming orb, then rocketing it between hands.” Call has fun with his friends, a sweet little bit of ephemeral happiness. In the chorus of the song she sings “Everything will be alright / So baby get some sleep tonight.” Although I can names many more, I will list one last song: “I Know Places.” This Taylor Swift song worked so well with the theme. Call is lost, scared, and he does not know who to trust. His father told him the school would be the death of him - “they are the hunters / we are the foxes” as the song goes. He needs to find a place to hide and people to hide with. Call needs love - not romantically - he needs a brother, a sister. A family.
Call has massive fear. His father ingrained in him the idea that magic equals monsters from the first time he moved dirt with his powers. He is told that if cannot contain this darkness flowing through his veins, he will be taken to a place where they torture and kill mages. Dark, seething caves filled with horrors like eyeless fish, where they slowly suck the life out of you. The authors gloss over what Call’s father ingrained in him on page 48, “The mages don’t care about anyone or anything except advancing their studies. They steal children from their families. They are monsters. They experiment on children. They are the reason your mother is dead.” Ergo, poor Call has this fear, this deep horrifying fear of the school - Magisterium. Yet, like I said above, that fear weakens when he arrives and over the course of the book his begins to embrace his magic.
This book had one of the best endings I’ve ever read. (To understand my reasoning I’ll explain my reading tastes. I enjoy villains. In fact, heroes bore me and I adore the bad guys. Anakin Skywalker, Tom Riddle, The Big Bad Wolf, The Queen of Hearts, Sebastian Morgenstern, Maleficent, The Evil Queen. These characters are so complex and fascinating. We take humans and warp them, give them dark souls and heinous thoughts and that makes them villains. Of course, there different kinds of villains. My favorite are those ruled by emotion. Anakin Skywalker, who sought power to protect those he loved, to put a stopper on death. His love, his fierce passions drove him to into the powers of Hell. This brings up the question: is love a good thing?) The villain in The Iron Trial is called the Enemy of Death. He uses his dark, chaos magic to bring back those who die. However he is only in his twenties and his yearning for power originating from the death of his brother. To get to the point, the ending is so amazing because it explodes and we find out that Call is dead. He was killed twelve years ago and the Enemy of Death put his own soul in Call’s body. Call is the Enemy of Death. He is the villain. This is explained to us in chapter twenty-four, and the quote on page 271 is particularly enlightening (and vicious), “The spark of life within you - the soul, if you will, - all that animates the shell of your body belongs to Constantine Madden. The real Callum Hunt dies as a mewling baby.” I adore this so much. I have already read the sequel because I could not wait. It was too good. In it, Call learns to accept his identity and struggles to figure out if he is “good” or “bad.” The book closed most ties, but left a good chunk for the following books - nothing was left out. I think in the third book he will come to terms with the powers the Enemy of Death gave him along with the soul. This seems logical because he seems quite haunted by these dark powers in the first book and its sequel.