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Chapter 1
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Last Cuentista, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Story and Memory
Assimilation vs. Diversity
Family
Resistance, Courage, and Kindness
Summary
Analysis
Petra, her mother, her father, and her little brother Javier prepare to board the spacecraft that will take them to the new planet. The government has designed a program for a select group of experts to travel into space on three vessels designed for the rich by a company called Pleiades Corp. Petra doesn’t know why her family is included among those chosen to go, and she struggles with feelings of guilt about leaving others behind on Earth. Mama tries to cheer Petra up by telling her about the life they’ll have on Sagan, the new planet. Petra, still upset, threatens to “tell them about [her] eyes” and jeopardize her ability to go.
In this passage, the inequity that undergirds the space expedition starts to come into focus. Petra later clarifies that her family has been invited to board the spaceship because of her parents’ scientific expertise, but her confusion over who gets to live and who has to die exposes the ultimate unfairness of the situation. To make matters worse, it starts to become clear that something is wrong with Petra’s vision, and that if it is discovered, her place on the new planet might be in jeopardy. It seems like the new planet will only welcome people who fit a very specific set of guidelines.
Active
Themes
Petra’s mother tells her to consider how the people who weren’t chosen for the program but are desperate to save themselves or their loved ones would feel if she wasted her spot on the ship, and Petra stops complaining. As their family approaches the massive, praying mantis-shaped ship, Petra briefly makes eye contact with a girl in a unicorn hoodie named Suma. Petra and her family stop to look at the ship, where they will enter an induced slumber for 380 years while in transit.
Active
Themes
