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Chapter 8
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
As winter deepens on Fur Island, Angel grows increasingly comfortable with silence. She and Bush often go long stretches without speaking, and it no longer feels strange. Though Bush has gradually shared pieces of Angel’s past with her, Angel keeps one secret to herself: before she found Agnes, while searching court records for family, she discovered a younger biological sister in South Dakota named Henriet. When they met, Angel learned that Henriet cuts herself regularly, her scars a testament to her belief that nothing else could hurt her.
Angel’s growing comfort with silence signals an alignment with Bush’s way of being. What once might have felt isolating or strange now simply feels like normal life. But Angel’s secret about Henriet reveals that she’s still drawing boundaries around her own pain. Learning about Henriet’s self-harm is a reminder that trauma doesn’t express itself in just one way, and that even blood ties don’t guarantee understanding or closeness. Angel choosing not to share this with Bush reinforces how wary she still is about being too vulnerable or revealing too much about herself.
Active
Themes
Throughout the winter, Bush becomes consumed with the idea of traveling north to the land of the Fat-Eaters to stop the government’s dam project and the diversion of sacred waterways. She feels responsible for protecting the land, the people, and the animals whose habitats are threatened. Poring over maps and charting a course, she plans to leave in early spring. Angel is expected to come too, since Hannah is believed to be living in a town near the Fat-Eaters. But the more Bush prepares, the more treacherous the journey seems to Angel. Bush recalls how beavers once shaped the land’s waters naturally, and now humans are trying to mold those ancient paths into something unnatural.
Bush’s fixation on the northward trip reveals how much of her identity is tied to activism and the desire to preserve Native land and ways of life. To Angel, her drive seems noble but intimidating. Bush becomes gradually harder to reach, consumed by a purpose that grows stronger each day. Humans have strayed so far from their once-close relationship with animals and the natural world, the novel suggests, and Bush intends to do everything in her power to restore the proper order of things.
Active
Themes
As the season wears on and Angel makes regular trips to Adam’s Rib, she and Tommy Grove grow steadily closer. She admires his maturity and deep respect for the natural world, so unlike the boys from her past. Still, Angel worries about Bush, who’s grown increasingly strange in her solitude, muttering to herself and retreating further inward. When LaRue visits with an old map Bush requested he bring, Angel sees a possibility: maybe she could teach LaRue how to court Bush, which would give Bush someone to talk to. It’s a long shot—Bush can barely tolerate the odd taxidermist—but it seems worth trying.
LaRue recently acquired two human mummies, hoping to one day open his own museum, and Bush makes her disapproval clear. She tells him she dreamed of the mummies, and they said they wanted to return to the earth. When LaRue tries to flirt with her, she quickly announces she’s done working for him and won’t collect bones for him anymore. Angel rides back to the mainland with him and offers to help win Bush over. Though he scoffs at the idea of receiving a teenager’s help, Angel pushes on, beginning with her first piece of advice: get rid of the mummies.
Active
Themes
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