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Chapter 6
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Solar Storms, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Trauma and Healing
Displacement and Belonging
Cycles of Violence
Environmental Stewardship
Spirituality and Resistance
Summary
Analysis
Husk tells Angel about a song Bush knows that can tear down bridges. Bush explains she only learned it because some connections are meant to break and stay broken, like the bridges between the living and the spirits that mean them harm—as they did with Hannah. Once, Hannah told Bush that a man had snuck into her room at night and hurt her. Another time, she said a ghost unbuttoned her dress. Bush knew these things couldn’t have literally happened—but she also knew Hannah was telling the truth. There were other spirits inside her, speaking and acting through her. When Bush tried to enter Hannah’s inner world, through fasting and other old ways, she succeeded, but what she found terrified her. Her own spirit was nearly trapped inside.
Bush’s bridge-breaking song is a symbol for necessary severance, for disconnection as a means of survival. But sometimes, there are those for whom such a song is useless, so strong is their connection to evil. Hannah, the novel suggests, is one of these people. None of Bush’s spiritual pursuits get her any closer to truly helping Hannah escape the spirits that possess her. Though Hannah’s stories blur the line between memory, metaphor, and truth, Bush listens without needing proof. She knows there are truths that live in the body even when they seem to defy practical logic.
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Bush tells Angel about the moment she realized how dangerous Hannah truly was: when she found her beloved dog tortured and killed and learned that Hannah had done it. Bush refused to send her away, but when Hannah eventually left for the north on her own, no one—Bush included—was sorry to see her go. And when she returned, pregnant with Angel, Bush tried everything she could to get her to stay. She believed that was the only way she could protect Angel from the mother who, she was certain, would eventually try to kill her.
The murder of Bush’s dog represents Hannah’s cruel desire to target the most innocent forms of life for harm. But Bush’s compassion ultimately has limits—not because she lacks love, but because she recognizes real danger when she sees it. She knows that if Hannah can so easily abuse an animal, abusing a human being, particularly a vulnerable baby or child, isn’t that far of a stretch. Bush advocates for keeping Hannah close because she fears what could happen to Angel if she lets go, not necessarily because she believes that Hannah could redeem herself. That fear, in the end, proves justified, as Angel’s survival in her earliest years depended on Bush’s refusal to look away.
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Husk brings Agnes’s old sewing machine to Fur Island, and Bush begins teaching Angel how to use it. Angel struggles, breaking needles and ruining projects, but she’s determined to learn this skill. She’s helping Bush make t-shirts that Bush can sell, hopefully eventually freeing her from having to work for LaRue, whom neither of them can stand. LaRue, for his part, clearly wants to be more than just friendly with Bush.
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