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Chapter 2
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Hunting by Stars, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Community and Identity
Resistance, Survival, and Hope
Dehumanization and Trauma
Language, Memory, and Legacy
Colonial Dominance vs. Healing with Nature
Summary
Analysis
Frenchie dreams he is with his family—the group of people with whom he traveled for years. In the dream, Miig gathers everyone around a fire to tell Story, a narrative to explain how the world got to where it is. Frenchie sits next to Rose and observes the others: Slopper, who is young but learning language, Wab with her scarred face and pregnant belly, quiet Chi Boy, and the twins Tree and Zheegwon who both bear mutilations from people who thought their bodies held a cure for the dreamlessness. Miig—short for Miigwans—is their only Elder.
That Frenchie considers his group a family (rather than a community) speaks to depth of their connection and care for one another. Frenchie clearly views Miig as a father figure in the absence of his biological parents. By telling Story, Miig ensures that the children in his care remember their history and use it as a way to make sense of their personal and communal legacies. That Frenchie is dreaming of his family signifies his hope of returning to them soon.
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Miig says Story is home, containing everything needed for survival. The land they live on is integral to their identity, but too often Indigenous people are lumped into one group with no acknowledgement of different territories. Doing so makes them easier to devalue. Like any structure, Story sometimes needs renovation, which is done with the blood of those who carry it. Frenchie pictures Minerva and others who have lost their lives. Miig goes on to describe how natural disaster and disease ravaged the land. Eventually, desperation drove people to steal the marrow from Indigenous people who could still dream, believing the dreams lived in their bones. Miig tells Frenchie not to let them take his dreams.
By describing Story as home, Miig suggests that remembering their shared history and identities is more important for survival than a permanent place in the world (which is presently unachievable, as they are always on the run). Even so, a part of them always belongs to the natural world and the territories possessed by their ancestors. Miig notes that failing to distinguish Indigenous people from one another aids their oppressors in dehumanizing them. In discussing how Story can be renovated, Miig acknowledges that they all are capable of changing the course of history. That dreams are presumed to remain solely in Indigenous marrow suggests that within this fictional world, Native people are more capable of imagining hopeful possibilities and thereby changing their stories. Miig’s instruction to Frenchie implies his dreams are essential to maintaining hope and his identity.
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Frenchie drifts in and out of consciousness as someone shaves and bandages his head. When he wakes fully, he is back in the small dark room. Wondering whether the others were captured, Frenchie bangs on the door, demanding answers. Again, he hears his mother’s voice. She tells him that, beneath a microscope, marrow looks like a universe of planets. Lying on the floor, Frenchie reaches out and feels her hand, wondering if either of them are alive. Later, he wakes knowing that Mom couldn’t have really been there. Without the ability to run, hunt, or fight, Frenchie feels truly helpless.
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Occasionally, Mom’s voice cuts through the darkness, spouting facts about the universe and saying she is with Frenchie. Frenchie worries he’s losing his mind. The last thing he remembers is finding Isaac among a group of strangers near the camp and weeping with joy when he reunited with Miig. Afterward, Frenchie went to urinate in the woods and was struck on the head. Mom keeps talking. Frenchie says she isn’t real. Aching with hunger, Frenchie cries hysterically. Realizing madness is a symptom of dreamlessness, Frenchie becomes convinced they’ve already taken his marrow. He resolves to get out one way or another but soon succumbs to despair and sleep.
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Frenchie dreams of a large heatless fire. Reaching in, he pulls out a human skull whose flesh grows back until he is holding Rose’s head, which screams. Frenchie wakes in a panic, haunted by the image. But he is grateful to discover he can still dream. The door opens and Frenchie regrets not preparing for a fight. A suited man drags him down a bright hallway. When Frenchie asks questions, the man slams his head into a doorframe. The place smells like industrial cities. Frenchie thanks the man for slowing on the stairs then regrets his timid gratitude. At a door labeled “MEETING ROOM 3,” a voice beckons Frenchie inside, and he feels himself drawn to it.
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