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
Glerk and Fyrian watch the Sorrow Eater run up the hill. Glerk declares that they’ll surprise her, which he hasn’t done in a while. Glerk is so formidable that his enemies are usually too afraid to fight, which suits Glerk—he thinks fighting is uncivilized. He’s serene by nature, like a bog. Suddenly, Glerk misses the Bog so much that he almost falls. He thinks that his love for Xan has kept him complacent and happy, but he should be in the world and is ashamed.
When Glerk recognizes that being with Xan has meant sacrificing his role in the wider world, he discovers that loving someone as he loves Xan comes with a price—and now, it’s time to resume his place in the world once Xan is dead. However, now Glerk will likely not forget her memory as he forgot Zosimos, as he now sees that these events will influence how he tackles things in the future.
Themes
Fyrian can fly again, so he hovers above and says that Luna is on the ridge with the crow, whom Fyrian despises. Glerk point out that Fyrian can’t despise anyone, but Fyrian continues that Xan is there and sick. He also sees a man, paper birds that seem to love Luna, and a woman who also seems to love Luna. There’s also a lady like a tiger. Glerk says that they should charge. Fyrian is confused until Glerk says that the tiger lady—the Sorrow Eater—is the reason that Fyrian’s mother dove into the volcano and why other mothers are childless. Fyrian screams.
When Fyrian loses his composure upon learning that there’s a single person he can blame for his mother’s loss, it reminds the reader of how loving Fyrian is—he loves his mother, Xan, and Luna to the point that he’s willing to act in a way that’s entirely out of character in order to protect those still alive and avenge his dead mother.
Themes
Antain is confused to see Sister Ignatia. Xan tells Antain that Sister Ignatia is the Witch. The Sorrow Eater—whom, Luna realizes, is Sister Ignatia—taunts Xan and Zosimos’s memory. Luna can see that the Sorrow Eater’s magic is empty in the center. She steps forward, and the Sorrow Eater’s magic begins to unspool toward Luna, but the Sorrow Eater doesn’t notice. The madwoman tells Antain to hope so that the Sorrow Eater can’t feed on his sorrow. The madwoman steps toward Luna as Antain asks Sister Ignatia how she could do this. The madwoman whispers that a part of the Sorrow Eater is still human—at night, she walks and mourns, but she never remembers why.
Now that everyone is in the forest, where Sister Ignatia has no real sway like she does in the Protectorate, the madwoman becomes the source of all knowledge—she has, after all, spent the most time with Sister Ignatia and has learned through her magic how Sister Ignatia actually works. When she chooses to help both Antain and Luna understand how to protect themselves, it shows that their family is beginning to expand and include more people.
Themes
Luna focuses on the Sorrow Eater’s sealed memories. Xan says that the babies didn’t die—the Sorrow Eater never knew that Xan was taking the babies to the Free Cities where they were loved. She declares that the Sorrow Eater won’t profit off of Antain and Ethyne’s sorrow—and now, the Protectorate knows what freedom feels like. The Sorrow Eater grows pale and stumbles as Luna sees a pearl where her heart should be. Inside are memories, hope, and love. The Sorrow Eater realizes that someone is taking her magic, but the madwoman says that there’s none to take. Both Xan and the madwoman say that the Sorrow Eater ate their sorrow.
It’s telling that the Sorrow Eater’s heart is encased in much the same way that Luna’s magic was. This suggests that within the world of the novel, it’s possible to lock all manner of qualities and emotions up. However, judging by how locking up Luna’s magic went over, the Sorrow Eater isn’t going to be able to keep her heart locked up for long, especially since it’s keeping the Sorrow Eater from experiencing a full range of emotions.
Themes
Get the entire The Girl Who Drank the Moon LitChart as a printable PDF.
The Sorrow Eater says that these are lies, but Luna can see that it’s true. She sees that the Sorrow Eater’s pearl contains memories, a loved person, loss, hope, and despair. Luna looks around at her companions and realizes that love, like the universe, is infinite—it can carry everything. She concentrates on the pearl and flicks it open. The Sorrow Eater cries as Fyrian zooms over the ridge and shouts at her.
In this moment, Luna discovers that hearts—and by extension, families—can always find more to love and experience. Trying to keep love from growing, as the Sorrow Eater did, is ineffective. The Sorrow Eater’s reaction to suddenly having to face her emotions shows that there are major consequences to being cut off from the full range of one’s emotions.
Themes
The Sorrow Eater’s sorrow leaks out as Fyrian dives. They both lament their mothers as Fyrian picks up the Sorrow Eater and threatens to burn her. Glerk races up the mountain and tells Fyrian to put her down. Fyrian sobs that he misses his mother, and that the Sorrow Eater should pay. Glerk, with love, says that this answer is too easy. Fyrian sobs and Luna sees that the Sorrow Eater walled off her sorrow and eventually, it began to suck in more sorrow and made her hungry for it. This is why she began to cultivate it. Fyrian threatens to throw the Sorrow Eater into the volcano, but Xan calls to Fyrian. Fyrian drops the Sorrow Eater and puts his head in Xan’s arms. Xan tells Fyrian that his heart is Simply Enormous. With her heart broken, the Sorrow Eater begins to age.
When both Fyrian and the Sorrow Eaters grieve for their mothers, it again makes the case that familial love, and specifically the bond between birth mothers and their children, is stronger than nearly anything else. This is why Fyrian stayed small, and it’s why the Sorrow Eater felt the need to construct a horrific life in order to keep herself from feeling her sorrow. Glerk and Xan’s ability to talk Fyrian down from this ledge shows that they’re still important parental figures in his life, and that they can help keep him from following in the Sorrow Eater’s footsteps.
Themes
The ground shakes, and Fyrian says that soon the air will be bad and they should leave. The madwoman says that her boots can save them if Fyrian takes Glerk and the Sorrow Eater. They must go to the Protectorate to warn everyone. As Luna climbs on the madwoman’s back, she reminds herself that this is her mother, not a madwoman.
The recognition on Luna’s part that this is her mother, not a madwoman, shows the power of language to influence how a person interprets something. Thinking of this woman as her mother forces Luna to look at her with love rather than fear and suspicion.
Themes
