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 leaves Xan a note, saying that she’s going to collect berries and sketch. Xan will likely be asleep when Luna returns. Luna knows this isn’t normal, but Xan insists it is. Luna knows that both she and Xan are lying to each other. She slips outside and begins to climb the hill. Luna notices that she stinks and thinks that her body is changing. She’s also experienced other things she can’t explain, like ending up in the top of a tree and hearing a squirrel respond to something she said. Luna hasn’t told Glerk or Xan about this, as she forgets some of these events or is embarrassed by what she does remember. She hears a voice in her head saying that this has happened before.
The voice in Luna’s head suggests that her conscience is, on some level, aware of the fact that she’s under intense censorship. However, none of this makes any sense to Luna because she can’t remember her life before Xan placed the spell on her, since she can’t remember any of the magical events that happened before then. Forgetting this means that Luna also can’t ask for help or draw on her family as she navigates both puberty and her emerging magic.
Themes
A crow looks Luna in the eye. Luna greets it and though the crow caws in reply, Luna knows it’s greeting her. Suddenly, she remembers: yesterday, she gathered an egg from the chickens and in her hand, it became sharp and then bit her. It had become a crow. Now, the crow follows her, cawing. Luna knows it’s saying her name and sees that if she looks at it sideways, it’s blue and silver. She asks the crow what it is. It says that it’s an excellent crow and agrees with Luna that Xan and Glerk won’t be happy to see it. Luna knows that there’s a word to explain the crow’s existence, but she can’t remember what it is.
The silver and blue aura that Luna sees around the crow makes it even clearer to the reader that the crow is a being that Luna created. The crow functions as Luna’s conscience in an external form. By creating the crow like this, the Luna is able to effectively accept help from another being—but given that the crow is of her own making, she’s also able to accept help from herself.
Themes
Luna trips on a rock and falls on her sack. It tells her to get off of it, and then Fyrian’s head appears. Luna rolls her eyes and glares at him, but he says that he just wants to hang out with her. The crow caws, and Luna can feel him thinking her name. Luna climbs to the top of the volcano and asks Fyrian to be quiet. She snuggles him and looks at the forest in the opposite direction of the Free Cities. Luna reasons that the forest must end somewhere, and thinks that Xan has never explained why she can’t go in that direction. She pulls out her drawing supplies, hushes Fyrian again, and tries to make her mind blank. Sometimes, she can feel her fingers crackle when she does this.
Luna’s growing curiosity about life in the opposite direction of the Free Cities is understandable for any young person who’s becoming more aware of the world around them. But the novel also suggests that for Luna specifically, her curiosity is actually an unconscious interest in remembering her past. This suggests that as Luna grows and comes of age, she’ll also start to figure out who she is and where she came from—and in doing that, she’ll be able to best prepare for adulthood.
Themes
In her mind, Luna sees the horizon and the world turning toward her. She draws until she hears Fyrian and the crow yelling at her. She wakes with a start and sees that it’s noon. She assures Fyrian that she’s not sick, but Fyrian says that something odd happened to her eyes—they were pale like moons. Luna stumbles forward and grabs boulders, which become light like feathers. Then, she jumps over a small ravine with a huge leap. Fyrian insists that none of these things are normal. The crow caws to stop Fyrian from talking, and Fyrian angrily flies home. Luna hurries down the mountain and pauses at a stream to freshen up. The volcano hiccups, which worries Luna.
As annoyed as Fyrian is with the crow, the crow is only trying to protect Luna—realizing now that she is magic might put Luna into a much longer trance, possibly until she turns 13 and the spell breaks. Despite this, Fyrian’s willingness to speak the truth suggests that he has the capacity to not be as closed as Xan is when it comes to noticing the truth and trying to figure out how to deal with it. Noting that Luna isn’t normal is an important first step to trying to figure out why, how, and what to do about it.
Themes
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Luna hears Glerk calling for her. She races down to him and sees that he’s anxious and alone. Back at the house, Xan is still asleep and sleeps for another hour. Xan assures Luna that this is normal and Luna agrees. They won’t look each other in the eye. Later, when Xan goes to the workshop, Luna pulls out her drawings. While she was dreaming, she drew a tower with a paper bird coming out of the window. She drew a baby surrounded by trees in the moonlight and then two maps. One leads to the Free Cities and the other leads in the opposite direction. They mark dangerous spots and good water. At the end of the second map, there are trees, the word “baby,” a town, a Tower, and the words “she is here.”
Though the narrator never entirely describes the madwoman’s maps, it’s likely that Luna’s maps are very similar to the madwoman’s. Again, this reinforces the bond between birth parents and their children, and suggests that both are drawn to each other, since Luna’s map leads to her mother, and her mother’s map leads to Luna. Because this is presented as a fact, the novel suggests that curiosity about one’s origins is normal—and that remembering or learning about it is the only way to properly grow and prepare for adulthood.
Themes
