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Chapter 4
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in When You Trap a Tiger, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Inherited Stories vs. Personal Agency
Magic and Belief
Food and Connection
Grief, Loss, and Community
Summary
Analysis
Lily retells Halmoni’s story about the tiger, the big sister named Unya, and the little sister named Eggi. In the story, the tiger finds Unya and Eggi’s grandmother, and he tells her that she has something he wants. Unya and Eggi’s grandmother tries to distract the tiger by tossing rice cakes at him, but when she runs out of treats, the tiger eats her. The tiger then disguises himself as the grandmother and goes to her cottage, where Unya and Eggi are waiting. Eggi opens the door to realize that the tiger isn’t her grandmother, and the girls run away. Eggi begs the sky god for help, and to her surprise, the sky god offers them a home in the sky kingdom in exchange for a story. Unya becomes the sun, and Eggi becomes the moon. However, Eggi cries that people will stare at her, so the girls switch places.
Although Lily retells Halmoni’s story without providing additional commentary, the story seems to bear some resemblance to Lily’s current situation. Eggi and Unya, the two sisters in the story, may represent Lily and Sam respectively. Additionally, Halmoni claims that the tiger Lily saw may be coming after her, just as the tiger pursues the grandmother in the story. Based on Lily’s understanding of the story’s end, Unya, the older sister, saves Eggi, the younger sister, from a lifetime of being stared at as the moon. This may also reflect the nature of the relationship Lily would like to have with Sam (that is, she’d perhaps like Sam to be more protective).
Active
Themes
