Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Walk Two Moons, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Judgment, Perspective, and Storytelling
Parents, Children, and Growing Up
Grief
Nature
Summary
Analysis
Gramps is worried about Gram, but he’s not worried about her snake bite—rather, Gram’s breathing is raspy now. He promises to stop in the Badlands. The air is still whispering to Sal to slow down, but she suggests that they don’t stop. Sal knows Momma must’ve traveled this road and wonders what she thought of every passing sign. Momma didn’t like to drive, so when she announced that she was going to Lewiston, Dad and Sal were shocked. Momma had a cousin in Lewiston whom she hadn’t seen in 15 years. And that, Momma said, was a good thing—the cousin would be able to tell Momma who she really is, who she was before she became a wife and a mother. Her cousin, Momma believed, would be able to tell her who Chanhassen is.
It’s possible that the whispers telling Sal to slow down are linked to Gram’s declining health. On some level, perhaps Sal knows that by rushing through the trip and not stopping to rest, they could exacerbate whatever is wrong with Gram or miss some of her symptoms. Meanwhile, by wondering what Momma thought of the passing landscape, Sal is able to “walk two moons” in Momma’s shoes (just like the mysterious letter suggested) and see this route through Momma’s eyes. This may allow Sal to develop more empathy for her mother and come to a better understanding of Momma’s departure. Finally, in Sal’s flashback, she confirms that Momma did feel stifled by her role as a wife and mother. Sal and Dad’s surprise when Momma floated the idea of the trip to Lewiston suggests that she challenged their assumptions of who she was.
Themes
The Badlands are a shock for Sal. The rest of South Dakota is flat, but the Badlands consist of jagged peaks, hills, and valleys. Gram is so raspy and out of breath that she can’t get out “Huzza, huzza.” Gramps puts a blanket down for her to sit on. Sal remembers the two postcards Momma sent her from the Badlands. One said that Sal is Momma’s left arm, and that Momma misses her left arm. Sal tells her grandparents one of Momma’s stories about the sky. The sky used to be low enough to bump your head on—and people got so fed up, they pushed the sky up with long poles.
This passage again shows how devoted Gramps is to Gram. Her worsening health continues to build tension, as it makes the future uncertain and could throw a wrench in Sal’s goal of reaching Lewiston by Momma’s birthday. Sal can’t look at the Badlands without also seeing Momma, and because of this, she also remembers Momma’s stories that seem particularly relevant to the Badlands.
Themes
As Sal tells her story, a pregnant woman stands nearby. Gramps invites the woman to sit on their blanket. Since Sal is afraid of pregnant women, she excuses herself. She remembers how when Momma told Sal about her pregnancy, Sal was upset. But before long, Sal got excited about the baby. She helped decorate the nursery and fold clothes. She, Momma, and Dad couldn’t decide on a name for the baby, but this didn’t worry Momma.
As Sal describes her growing excitement for Momma’s baby, she implies that she hasn’t always been afraid of pregnant women—she was perhaps afraid of how the baby might change her life, but she wasn’t scared of Momma. Seeing the pregnant woman now, Sal can’t help but remember Momma being pregnant and relive this moment.
Themes
Three weeks before Momma was due, Sal was climbing trees in the woods. Dad was in town, and Momma was scrubbing floors. Then, Sal’s branch snapped, and she fell. She woke up later to discover her leg twisted under her. Sal passed out again and woke up when it was dark. Momma was calling for her. Eventually, Momma found Sal, carried her home, and called Gram and Gramps to take Sal to the hospital.
Sal might love the natural world, but it’s not always a force kind and generous force. She learns here that it can hurt her, and the situation puts Momma in danger as well—lifting like this can be dangerous if a woman has a high-risk pregnancy. But because Momma’s loved Sal so much, she didn’t hesitate to carry her inside and get her the care she needed. Nevertheless, this detail foreshadows that something may have gone wrong with the baby after this, which would explain Sal’s previous hints that she’s any only child despite Momma having been pregnant with a second baby.
Themes
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That night, Momma went into labor. She insisted something was wrong. Sal sat outside the bedroom as Momma screamed and went quiet. The doctor came out of the bedroom with the baby, which was blue with marks on its neck. The umbilical cord had strangled it. The baby was a girl.
This confirms what Sal has hinted at throughout the book: the baby Momma was carrying didn’t survive. This traumatic memory explains why Sal fears pregnant women. She’ll never be able to forget that having children doesn’t always bring happiness, the way it does for the Finneys—it can also bring tragedy.
Themes
The doctor allowed Sal to touch the baby but not to hold her. Dad was shaken, but he kept checking on Sal and Momma. He told Sal it wasn’t her fault; the baby didn’t die because Momma carried Sal earlier. Sal didn’t believe him. She snuggled in with Momma, who asked to hold the baby. She wouldn’t accept that the baby was dead.
It is impossible to tell whether Momma carrying Sal is what caused the baby to die—the stress of lifting Sal could have caused complications, or the baby’s death may have been entirely unrelated. Either way, though, the stillbirth isn’t Sal’s fault—she didn’t break her arm on purpose, nor could she have known that Momma would carry her. But the reader has already seen that Sal she deals with grief by blaming herself, so she assumes that she must have caused her sister’s death. This mirrors Phoebe’s practice of telling wild stories—there’s a remote chance that Phoebe is right that Mrs. Winterbottom was kidnapped, but it’s highly unlikely and impossible to verify. Nevertheless, it makes Phoebe feel better and more in control, just as Sal tries to understand the stillbirth by blaming herself.
Themes
Sal fell asleep and woke up to Momma calling for Dad. Dad turned the light on and found the bed soaked in blood. An ambulance came for Momma, and Gram tried to scrub the blood off of Sal’s cast. When Dad came home, he insisted they name the baby anyway. Sal suggested Tulip. Over the next few days, Momma had two operations to stop the bleeding. Ultimately, she had a hysterectomy—she’d never have another baby.
Momma and Dad dreamed of having many more children. So, in addition to the trauma of losing Tulip, Momma also lost the ability to pursue the dream of having more biological children when she had the hysterectomy. This fundamentally changed the course of her life, and the description of Dad and Sal seeing the blood-soaked bed and witnessing Momma being taken away in an ambulance suggests that this was traumatic for the whole family.
Themes
Back in the present, Sal looks at Gram, Gramps, and the pregnant woman. She imagines that the woman is Momma, and that everything will turn out okay. Then, Sal tries to imagine what Momma did when the bus stopped here. Was Momma thinking about Sal as she sat here?
Imagining that the pregnant woman is Momma is a thought experiment for Sal to consider how things might have been if Tulip hadn’t died. Sal can’t change anything about the past, but reflecting on what happened to Momma and trying to put herself in Momma’s shoes may help her get some closure.
Themes
Then, Sal picks up a flat stone and hurls it across the gorge. She remembers a Blackfoot story Momma told her about Napi, who created people. He decided to toss a stone in water to see if humans would live forever or die; if the stone sank, they’d die. The stone did sink. Sal had asked Momma why Napi used a stone instead of a leaf, but Momma couldn’t give a satisfactory answer. Sal throws another rock across the gorge. It sinks, and Sal thinks she shouldn’t expect anything else.
This Blackfoot myth ties into Sal’s lingering trauma surrounding Tulip’s death. It introduces the idea that although death is natural and expected, it’s still traumatic and difficult to accept, especially when someone dies at a young age. Furthermore, the fact that Blackfoot used a stone rather than a leaf in this myth could perhaps be seen as unfair—stones always sink, after all, so it’s as though Blackfoot knowingly doomed humans to mortality. This subtly hints that death is necessary and meaningful in a way that humans can’t necessarily understand or control, hence why Momma didn’t have an explanation for Sal.
Themes
