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Chapter 8
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Beyond the Sky and the Earth, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Culture Shock and Home
Buddhism and Everyday Life
Ethnic Nationalism and the Outsider Perspective
Women’s Role in Society
Summary
Analysis
There was a strike in Assam that prevented mail from going out of Pema Gatshel, but it lifts. Zeppa gets no mail, but new fruit arrives at the market. While at the bazaar, Zeppa meets Mrs. Joy’s husband for the first time—he is well-known in town for being drunk. When she gets home, Zeppa finds a British woman named Lesley waiting for her. She’s been in Bhutan for three years and is on her way to Tsebar to visit Jane. Lesley knows a lot about Bhutanese culture, and Zeppa gets overwhelmed realizing how little she knows herself.
Similar to Jane, Lesley highlights how it’s possible for an outsider to adapt to Bhutanese culture. In this case, Lesley’s arrival in Pema Gatshel helps Zeppa to see the village where she’s been living in a new light. Lesley both opens Zeppa up to new possibilities while also helping Zeppa to learn the limits of her own knowledge.
Themes
Zeppa thinks there are no restaurants in town, but to her amazement, Lesley finds a place where a woman serves them dumplings. The next morning, Lesley departs for Tsebar. At school, after the morning assembly, several teachers go to a classroom that has been cleared out to make way for an altar and chanting monks. The Bhutanese teachers prostrate themselves in front of the altar while the Indian ones just nod. Zeppa prostates herself. Afterwards, Mrs. Joy asks why, believing it’s against the first commandment to worship other gods, but Zeppa believes “a god is a god.”
Although the village of Pema Gatshel is small, Lesley helps Zeppa see new sides of it, like the restaurant, showing how there is more depth to the village than Zeppa realized. Meanwhile, Zeppa’s decision to try to do what the Bhutanese teachers do at the Buddhist ceremony shows how she wants to try to fit in with the local culture, even when she doesn’t fully understand it, rather than prioritizing her own cultural traditions.
Themes
