Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Girl Who Drank the Moon, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Family and Love
Storytelling, Censorship, and Control
Memory, Forgetting, and the Future
Sorrow vs. Hope
Summary
Analysis
Luna thinks that she’s ordinary as she grows into an 11-year-old. She hates that she only gets to go on some journeys to the Free Cities with Xan. While Xan is gone, Luna amuses herself in the workshop with books and inventions. Her favorite books are those about the moon, which she loves above all else. One day, she shows Glerk a mechanical cricket that she made. It hops and turns the pages of a book. Glerk is impressed to the point of being ready to burst, but he points out that the cricket isn’t turning pages when Luna would need it to, and it can’t read. Luna stamps her foot and Fyrian tries to make peace, but both Glerk and Luna shush him. Luna and Glerk argue more about the cleverness of her cricket.
Because of the spell, Xan can’t tell Luna anything about the Protectorate and the mysterious yearly trip that she takes alone. While the reader understands that Luna literally cannot know anything about this trip, it’s worth keeping in mind that Luna sees things differently: she sees Xan purposefully keeping something from her, and with no indication that she’ll ever decide to share. This makes Luna isolated within her family.
Themes
Feeling prickly, Luna asks where Xan is. Glerk says that she’ll be back in a week, but Luna whines that she wants her now. Glerk reminds Luna that according to the Poet, impatience is only for small creatures. Luna snaps that the Poet can boil his head, which makes Glerk feel wounded. Luna opens her pocket for Fyrian so they can walk up to the ridge and look for Xan. Glerk thinks that Luna seems off and as she walks away, and recites a poem to her about the virtues of being patient. Luna insists she’s not listening, but Glerk knows that she is.
Again, Luna’s impatience makes total sense—she’s at an age where she wants to know everything, and though Xan’s spell has made this impossible, she isn’t aware of this. This illustrates how even unintentional censorship can have major consequences, as it makes Luna feel alone and as though she can’t trust Glerk or Xan to level with her.
Themes
Fyrian falls asleep instantly. Luna thinks about him. When she was little, he was obviously older than her, and taught her about math. Now, Fyrian seems younger all the time. Whenever Luna asks about this, Glerk and Xan shrug and say that it’s just how dragons are. Luna reaches the top of the ridge and is shocked that Glerk let her come this far. She looks out toward the Free Cities, where there is eventually an ocean. In the other direction it’s just forest and the Bog, which Glerk insists gave birth to the world. Sometimes he says that this happened with a poem and sometimes he says that she’ll understand someday, but it never makes sense. Luna decides that Glerk is horrible, along with everything else.
Glerk likely let Luna come so far because he recognizes that she’s growing up and needs space. Giving her space allows Luna to begin to put together how her world works and how she fits into it. Specifically, her thoughts about Fyrian suggest that she’s aware on some level of the magic that controls her life (and Fyrian’s too, for that matter). But because Luna can’t remember anything about magic, she can’t actually figure out how any of this works.
Themes
Luna has a headache. She sits and closes her eyes. She can see blue and silver, and can feel something clicking in her head. Inexplicably, she thinks that each click brings her closer to the close. Suddenly, Luna sees an image of a house with quilts, colorful jars, and a woman with black hair and a crescent moon birthmark on her forehead. She can hear a man talking about a mama. Fyrian asks Luna why she’s crying. Luna insists she’s not, but she does miss Xan. Luna feels as though she’s seen the house and the woman from her vision before. She knows deep down that she once had another family, and tells Fyrian that she just loves her family. It’s her first lie, though what she says is true.
It’s important to pay attention to the fact that Luna’s discovery of her magic (the blue and silver she sees when she closes her eyes) and her history are linked. This indicates that as the story shifts more to follow Luna, Luna will break through censorship and forgetfulness all at the same time. When she lies to Fyrian about her tears, it shows that she’s learning from Xan how to ignore sad things and difficult things, as explaining what she saw to Fyrian would likely be very difficult.
Themes
Get the entire The Girl Who Drank the Moon LitChart as a printable PDF.
