In A Discovery of Witches, Deborah Harkness braids romance, scholarship, and the supernatural into a hidden world where witches, vampires, and daemons navigate ancient laws under the gaze of modern science. The story of Diana Bishop and Matthew Clairmont opens on desire, blood, and fear—longing for connection and knowledge, the weight of lineage and extinction, and the prejudice that polices every boundary. These forces converge into a narrative about transgressing limits, reclaiming identity, and reinterpreting the past to survive the future.
Major Themes
Forbidden Love and Inter-species Relationships (theme page)
Diana and Matthew’s bond violates the Covenant and exposes the fragility of a society built on separation. Their choice to love becomes an act of civil disobedience that forces families, rulers, and allies to question inherited animosities and the utility of the walls that keep creatures apart. The theme tests whether intimacy can dismantle prejudice and whether a new, blended order can replace fear with loyalty freely chosen.
Magic vs. Science and Reason (theme page)
Harkness stages a dialogue between empirical inquiry and the uncanny, with Diana’s historical training and Matthew’s lab work interrogating mysteries that magic alone cannot solve. Alchemy becomes the bridge, showing that knowledge traditions once merged the rational and the mystical rather than pitting them against each other. The novel argues for integration: truth expands when scientific rigor and magical insight collaborate.
Identity and Self-Acceptance (theme page)
Diana’s arc moves from denial to reluctant acknowledgment to deliberate mastery of her power, reframing identity as something lived and learned rather than inherited fully formed. Accepting her witchcraft requires unlearning fear, revising her self-image as “rational,” and trusting bonds that cross species lines. Other characters reflect this struggle—Marcus Whitmore balancing healer and vampire—with identity becoming an ethical choice, not just a biological fact.
The Power of History and Memory (theme page)
History in the novel breathes: archives speak, memories shape loyalties, and artifacts like Ashmole 782 carry living consequences. Matthew’s centuries of recollection and Diana’s craft as a historian turn personal memory and scholarly method into survival tools. By recovering what was erased or bewitched, the characters alter their present, suggesting that the past is a key not just to knowledge but to agency.
Family, Lineage, and Belonging (theme page)
Bloodlines are both refuge and burden: the Bishop witches and the de Clermonts demand loyalty while imposing rules that constrain freedom. The novel complicates inheritance through the making of a “found family”—a conventicle that chooses kinship across species and history. Belonging becomes elective and ethical, redefining family as a network of protection, truth-telling, and shared purpose.
Prejudice, Segregation, and Intolerance (theme page)
The Covenant and its enforcers transform fear into policy, restricting love, knowledge, and movement in the name of safety. Personal biases—from Sarah Bishop to Ysabeau de Clermont—mirror institutional intolerance, showing how law and culture sustain each other. Resistance to these strictures exposes the cost of segregation and the risks required to dismantle it.
Supporting Themes
Secrets and Deception (theme page)
From the spellbinding of Diana’s magic to Matthew’s hidden affiliations and the bewitched Ashmole 782, concealment drives both intimacy and conflict. Secrets protect families but also stunt growth and trust; the story insists that revelation is the precondition for love, justice, and scientific progress. This theme powers and complicates the Major Themes—history as hidden memory, identity as unbound magic, and family as both sanctuary and shadow.
Origins, Evolution, and Extinction (theme page)
Creature biology is failing—vampires struggle to sire, witches weaken, daemons destabilize—creating an existential countdown. Matthew’s research reframes myth as data, while Ashmole 782 promises a genomic or alchemical key to survival. The pressure of extinction intensifies prejudice and deepens alliances, making love and knowledge not luxuries but evolutionary strategies.
Theme Interactions
- Forbidden Love → Prejudice and Segregation: Diana and Matthew’s relationship exposes the Covenant’s fear as brittle and self-defeating, transforming private affection into political revolt.
- Magic vs. Science → Identity and Self-Acceptance: Diana’s scholarship and spellcraft must converge; only an integrated self can wield power responsibly and interpret evidence fully.
- Power of History and Memory → Secrets and Deception: Archives become battlegrounds; unlocking bewitched texts and buried pasts turns secrecy into knowledge and shifts who holds authority.
- Family and Lineage → Forbidden Love: Loyalty to clan collides with chosen bonds, forcing characters to redraw the map of duty, protection, and inheritance.
- Origins and Extinction → All Major Themes: Survival stakes heighten every choice, pushing characters to cross boundaries (love), combine methods (science and magic), and rethink belonging (family) to outpace decline.
These interactions show a single engine: fear builds walls; love, knowledge, and truthful memory breach them; chosen kinship sustains what bloodlines alone cannot.
Character Embodiment
Diana Bishop As a scholar who has suppressed her magic, Diana personifies Identity and Self-Acceptance and the convergence of Magic vs. Science and Reason. Her attraction to Matthew transforms Forbidden Love into a critique of segregation, while her work with archives embodies the Power of History and Memory.
Matthew Clairmont A biochemist shaped by fifteen centuries of memory, Matthew embodies the bridge between Magic and Science and the burdens of Family, Lineage, and Belonging. His research into creature decline ties him to Origins and Extinction, and his love for Diana tests and ultimately revises inherited prejudice.
Ysabeau de Clermont As a matriarch, Ysabeau channels the protective rigor and suspicion of ancient Family structures and the reflexes of Intolerance. Her evolving acceptance of Diana demonstrates how loyalty can shift from blood-only to chosen kin.
Sarah Bishop Rooted in Bishop tradition and wary of vampires, Sarah reflects everyday Prejudice shaped by grief and fear. Her protection of Diana shows how family love can expand to include the unexpected.
Marcus Whitmore A doctor turned vampire and reformer, Marcus dramatizes Identity’s tensions and the ethical demands of modernity on an ancient clan. His openness to change—scientific, social, familial—models how lineage can adapt without breaking.
Satu Järvinen A witch who abducts and tortures Diana, Satu crystallizes Fear and Intolerance fueled by secrecy and ambition. Her violence forces Diana’s powers into the open, accelerating self-acceptance and exposing the moral bankruptcy of coercion.
Together these figures stage the novel’s argument: when history is faced, secrets are unbound, and love chooses its own kin, knowledge deepens, prejudice cracks, and survival becomes possible.