Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Gathering Blue, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Art and Creative Instinct
Self-Interest versus Compassion
Power and Freedom
Pain and Maturity
Men, Women, and Gender Roles
Summary
Analysis
The morning after her conversation with Jamison, Kira wakes up groggy and prepares for her daily walk to Annabella’s cottage. Before she leaves, she notices that Thomas’s door is closed. He must be sleeping, she assumes.
Kira is more active and curious than Thomas—she walks around while he sleeps and stays indoors. Perhaps this is because she’s arrived in the Edifice more recently, and thus isn’t as comfortable there.
Themes
Kira walks to Annabella’s cottage. On her way, a woman named Marlena, who works at the weaving shed, greets her, and Kira stops to talk. Kira asks Marlena if she knew a tyke named Jo who used to sing; Marlena isn’t familiar with the name “Jo,” but says that she remembers a singing tyke who was orphaned. Marlena tells Kira that the tyke sang before she was taught, and that her songs told of things that hadn’t happened yet.
The information Kira learns about Jo reinforces the definition of “artist” that we’ve been given so far. Artists, even if they’re only tykes, have an almost mystical ability to see the future, and to know things—how to sing, for example—before they’re taught.
Themes
Matt — who stole Marlena’s lunch yesterday, Marlena says — arrives at the weaving shed with Branch, and tells Kira that Annabella was taken to the Field earlier that morning. Kira is upset and surprised to hear this, since she saw Annabella only two days previously. She decides to go to the Edifice and ask Jamison about Annabella. She tells Matt to wake up Thomas, and mentions that Jamison wears one of Thomas’s carvings. Matt shouts out that he saw Jamison with Annabella in the Field that morning—Kira realizes that Jamison already knows about Annabella.
The news that Annabella has been taken to the Field—in other words, she’s either dying or dead—come as a shock, but not only because Kira saw Annabella a few days ago. We’ve sensed that Jamison and the Council can’t be trusted, and it seems likely that Jamison has Annabella killed so that she wouldn’t reveal anything further about the beasts to Kira. It’s especially suspicious that Jamison already knows about Annabella’s death.
Themes
Inside the Edifice, Kira asks a guard where Jamison is, and he tells her shortly that he’s probably in Kira’s wing of the building, looking for her. When she asks how to get back to her wing without going back into the rain, he points her to a staircase at the end of the hall. Instead of walking back to her room immediately, Kira decides, “on a whim,” to stay in the hall and find the area where Jamison spoke to Jo yesterday.
Inspired by her innate curiosity and her distrust for Jamison and the Council, Kira tries to find Jo. It’s a little surprising that Kira’s been living in the Edifice for so long (months, at this point), and only now begins to explore the building in any serious way. (She doesn’t even know the building well enough to know how to get back to her room without asking someone.)
Themes
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Kira locates the door where she heard Jamison talking to Jo, and finds that it’s locked. She quietly calls Jo’s name. To her surprise, Kira hears a response: Jo says that she’s practicing. Through the closed door, Kira introduces herself. Jo, who sounds very young, says that she wants her mother. Kira thinks about the pen Vandara was building—at least there, the tykes were allowed to be with each other. It seems even crueler to leave Jo by herself. Kira tells Jo that she’ll come back soon, and returns to her quarters.
For the first time, Kira starts to compare the cruelty of the Council with the cruelty of the village. Even more surprisingly, she finds that the Council is actually crueler—at least tykes in the village were allowed to be miserable together. Kira shows herself to be a nurturing, caring person with an almost motherly persona: Jo wants her mother, but she gets Kira instead.
Themes
Back in her quarters, Kira finds Jamison waiting for her. He tells her, sadly, that Annabella has died. Kira, who’s suddenly uneasy around Jamison, does not mention Jo to him.
In only a few days, Kira has become much more suspicious with the Council and with Jamison specifically. She’s beginning to grow up—questioning everything around her and taking control of her life.
Themes
