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
The madwoman skids to a stop on the wall. Antain runs into the Protectorate while Luna helps Xan down. Luna looks into her mother’s eyes and watches them skitter through many emotions. Luna can see that she’s either mad or broken, and hopes that she can be fixed. Luna says she needs to get high up so she can protect everyone. She thinks that the swamp might already be gone. The madwoman leads Luna and Xan up, and Luna considers her mother’s magic. It’s like a jumble of magical trinkets, but it buzzes with love. Fyrian lands on the wall and townsfolk scatter, screaming.
When Luna understands that her mother’s magic isn’t especially powerful but is full of love, it again makes the point that love is stronger than magic—the love infused into the madwoman’s magic likely means that it’s going to be helpful as Luna sets about saving the Protectorate. The choice to save the Protectorate in the first place shows that Luna now has the memories to understand the importance of doing what’s kind and what’s right.
Themes
The volcano spews smoke and Luna asks if they can stop it. Xan says they can’t—stopping it last time was a mistake. She suggests that together, they can protect. Luna sobs, but Xan reminds Luna of how they used to make bubbles around flowers. Luna takes Xan and the madwoman’s hands and Xan shows her how to make bubbles. The volcano explodes.
Protecting rather than stopping the volcano is an important distinction. It means that Luna must respect that the volcano is going to erupt, but she still has the power to keep the people she loves safe. In this way, Luna learns again how to use language to shift her thinking in a positive way.
Themes
Three weeks later, the Protectorate is still covered in ash. The sun barely shines through, even though Luna creates rains that clear the air. People seem hopeful anyway. After the volcano exploded, they put the Elders in jail. “Gherland” is now an insult, Wyn now runs the library, and the Road is open to anyone. Antain vows that he’ll never leave his family again.
The fact that people are hopeful despite the lack of sunshine implies that the clouds were a symptom of hopelessness, not the cause. Jailing the Elders means that going forward, the people in the Protectorate will be able to create their own, true stories that make their lives better and remind them of how they should act.
Themes
Xan and the Sorrow Eater stay in the hospital wing of the Tower. Xan knows that she’ll die any day and isn’t afraid. Meanwhile, Luna and the madwoman move into Luken’s room in Ethyne and Antain’s house. It’s filled with paper, and the madwoman draws every day. Luna sets about discovering her mother’s name, and finally tells her mother that her name is Adara. She promises to remind her mother of her name until she starts to remember, and the two hold hands.
Discovering Adara’s name is a gift, as it begins to give Adara the information to start to rebuild her mind. With Luna back in the picture as well, Adara won’t be dealing with the grief that she felt along with the loss of her name. In this way, with both her family and a symbol of the past, Adara can more comfortably look forward to the future.
Themes
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Luna, Ethyne, and Adara visit Gherland in prison. Gherland spits that he should’ve drowned Luna, and says that he’s dreamed for years about the children he sacrificed, though he knows they died. Luna says that none of the babies died and Gherland should learn to listen. Adara softly says that the new Council will pardon Gherland once he apologizes. Gherland scoffs at the idea. Ethyne says that she forgives him anyway, but it might help Gherland to heal if he does. Gherland asks to see Antain as the women leave. Gherland never apologizes and stays in jail until he dies. Eventually, people forget him entirely.
Gherland’s dreams about the sacrificed children suggests that like the mothers who lost their babies, he feels some sense of remorse and grief for them. This again shows that Gherland is more than just a cantankerous, powerful, and bad person—he does have emotions and sympathy for others, deep down inside. The choice to not apologize, however, means that Gherland suffers the ultimate punishment: he isn’t immortalized in stories, and so is forgotten.
Themes
Fyrian grows bigger and bigger. On his back, Luna flies to the Free Cities. Everyone there grieves for Xan when they learn she’s going to die. Luna tells them the story of a town under the control of a horrible Witch who feeds on sorrow. She explains about the Day of Sacrifice and the good Witch who saved the babies and brought them to the Free Cities. The Star Children’s parents hold their children’s hands tightly, but Luna says that she’s in the same situation. She was taken from her mother and was raised by a loving grandmother. She can love them both: her joy and her love can expand.
Now, Luna has the power to tell everyone in the world what the actual story of the Protectorate and the Star Children is. At this point, the Witch has an actual, verified identity (Sister Ignatia) and so starts to become more of a character and less of a symbol of what storytelling can do. By encouraging the Star Children to love both their birth and adoptive families, Luna can make the case that discovering their birth families doesn’t mean that they have to love their adoptive families any less—their families can just get bigger.
Themes
Glerk stays by Xan’s side and looks longingly at the Bog. Eventually, Xan tells him to take daily bog baths since he stinks. Glerk promises to take Xan to the Bog with him when she’s ready. As Xan’s health declines, Luna decides to sleep with her in the Tower. She assures Adara, whose eyes fill with tears, that her love is multiplied, not divided. The first group of Star Children arrives at the Protectorate. The Sisters throw the hospital windows open. The Sorrow Eater croaks for the Sisters to close them, and cries in pain. Xan asks them to leave it open. They hear cries of joy. Luna and Xan say that they love each other as Xan dies.
Xan dies knowing that while she may have made a mistake in not being curious about where the children came from, she nevertheless created large familial networks that span the entire land of the novel. She can die having impressed upon Luna that she should always be curious and seek the truth, as remaining complacent means that she’s more likely to make grave mistakes that cause others pain and sorrow.
Themes
