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In Nora’s root life, Mrs. Elm is the kind school librarian who was one of her closest companions when she was a teenager. She shows Nora immense kindness when Nora learns that her father has died. This Mrs. Elm is kind, wise, thoughtful, and interested in Nora’s well-being. She challenges Nora to think beyond her assumptions about life and to question her idea that there’s only one path to success or happiness for her. The Mrs. Elm in the Midnight Library is a version of this real Mrs. Elm, borrowing characteristics of a school librarian, such as her kind, no-nonsense demeanor and her curiosity about Nora’s experience of the world. She challenges Nora to expand her definitions of success and interrogate what she wants out of life. She also pushes Nora to look past her more despairing ideas about the world and the black-and-white thinking that informs those ideas.
The Mrs. Elm in the Midnight Library, however, also exhibits metaphysical abilities and uncanny knowledge about Nora’s life that suggest that she is something other than human. For example, Mrs. Elm can make a book soar through the air into her waiting hand or read Nora’s thoughts as though she’s speaking them aloud. Mrs. Elm serves as a mentor throughout Nora’s Midnight Library experience, much as she did in real life for young Nora. She also exhibits a deep understanding of how Nora needs to heal in order to move forward in her life. As her name implies, Mrs. Elm and Nora Seed are part of a single continuum, and the older Mrs. Elm helps Nora grow into full bloom. This suggests that Mrs. Elm in the Midnight Library is a form of Nora’s higher self, possessing the wisdom, courage, and clarity to help the lost Nora find her way, both physically and existentially, back home.
