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Chapter 10
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Last Unicorn, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Love and Friendship
Mortality and Innocence
Obsession and Control
Belief and Stories
Summary
Analysis
As Prince Lír consults Molly and Schmendrick for help with writing poems for Lady Amalthea, Lady Amalthea herself enters the room, still half-asleep and unable to tell dream from reality. She dreams of her time in Mommy Fortuna’s carnival, and as she recounts the dream to Prince Lír, he begs her to stop because he claims that the curse upon the castle often makes nightmares come true. Lady Amalthea asks for Prince Lír to sing her a song to distract her, and he does. Overhearing his son, King Haggard wonders what has caused him to sing for the first time in years.
Here, the cat’s warnings begin to come true: Lady Amalthea is slowly forgetting her past life as a unicorn and can no longer quite remember what happened to her at Mommy Fortuna’s Midnight Carnival. In turn, however, Lady Amalthea and Prince Lír are finally able to grow closer when the lady asks the prince to sing for her, sharing with him, in a moment of weakness, what she might actually need from him.
Active
Themes
The days pass. Molly continues to cook and clean while Prince Lír writes more poems for Lady Amalthea, swearing to take a gentler approach to expressing his care for her. Schmendrick, on the other hand, seems to have lost hope, no longer believing that they will find their way to the Red Bull, while Lady Amalthea grows more beautiful and spends more time with Prince Lír. One day, Lady Amalthea waits for Prince Lír to return from a quest and speaks with King Haggard. When she asks him why he believes she wants to steal the Red Bull, however, he grows angry that she’s “pretending” to have forgotten her quest. From their position in a tower, the king points to the sea and reveals that the other unicorns are hidden there, now belonging to him after the Red Bull gathered them all and imprisoned them in the water.
Although Prince Lír and Lady Amalthea’s relationship begins to blossom, Schmendrick’s hope starts to wane, seemingly because he hasn’t figured out a way to progress their journey. Moreover, in Lady Amalthea’s conversation with King Haggard, the king’s frustration seems to suggest that he actually knows that Lady Amalthea is a unicorn who’s come to figure out what’s happened to her fellow unicorns. By explicitly revealing where the other unicorns are, the king helps Lady Amalthea on her quest—almost as though he actually wants her to succeed, though it isn’t quite clear what his intentions are.
Active
Themes
Lady Amalthea tells King Haggard that she doesn’t know what he means—she sees nothing in the water. King Haggard responds that she has grown as stupid as Prince Lír, and that her eyes must’ve changed. Eventually, the king leaves Lady Amalthea looking out into the sea, and Schmendrick comes to comfort her. When he sees Lady Amalthea’s damp face, he despairs, hoping that the wetness is spray from the sea and not tears; as a unicorn, Lady Amalthea used to not experience such human emotions.
Active
Themes
