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Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Monkey Beach, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Living and the Dead
Myths, Magic, and Monsters
Abuse and Historical Trauma
Protest and Power
Love and Family
Summary
Analysis
In the present, but in a vision, Lisa and Mick are in the woods. Mick points out the tree he wants—one so sick it’s bent nearly in two and the needles fall off it when he looks at it. Ba-ba-oo slaps his shoulder and says the tree isn’t even good enough for kindling. Lisa demands to know why Mick never visited her. He kisses her head as Ba-ba-oo breaks into a raunchy song. He and Ba-ba-oo get into a mock wrestling match and ruin the tree. The search begins again.
Lisa crosses over into the land of the dead—the land of the spirits—and finds herself surrounded by dead family members. Ba-ba-oo and Mick seem happy—in alignment with Ma-ma-oo’s earlier promises that the land of the dead is a place of happiness. Yet they break the tree, suggesting that there’s some danger in that place, especially for Lisa, who doesn’t belong there.
Themes
Lisa’s recent vision, and the legends Mom and Ma-ma-oo taught her, should warn her that she’s playing a dangerous game. And she likely already suspects the truth—that Jimmy has died. Yet she refuses to exercise caution and demands that the sprits tell her what she wants to know.
Themes
In a vision, Lisa sees Jimmy leaning over Josh, the oar in his hand dented from where he hit the older man. Jimmy knows Josh deserves to die for what he did to Karaoke, and he finally brings the oar down hard on Josh’s head, then watches him float away, buoyed by his life jacket. Jimmy slips over the railing and into the water. He’s surprised by how fast the boat sinks. He’d run it intentionally into a deadhead log, and while Josh was fighting to save his beloved boat, he tried to push him overboard. But it hadn’t been quick or easy. And now the life raft has disappeared. Jimmy begins to swim towards the shore.
As in her earlier visions of Ma-ma-oo’s and Ba-ba-oo’s deaths, the spiritual world offers Lisa a plausible version of the truth. Yet, although the book claims repeatedly that the line between the waking world and the spiritual world is thin and permeable, it remains unclear even here to what extent readers are supposed to take these magical events as happening, or whether they should understand these visions as Lisa’s imaginative elaboration on the information she already knows. In either case, however, this vision provides a narrative to Jimmy’s death which, although painful, gives Lisa a necessary sense of understanding and closure.
Themes
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The voices in the woods asked for meat, not for blood. They’ve fulfilled their end of the deal, and when Lisa bumps her head and sinks into the water, it seems as if they’re intent on making her fulfill her end.
Themes
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In the other realm, Ma-ma-oo frowns at Lisa and drags her out of the trees. She points to some oxasuli and reminds Lisa that her powerful gift is also dangerous, liable to get her killed. Lisa floats, watching the speedboat sink in slow motion. She breathes in the salt water, gagging on it as she sinks. Crows wheel over her head in a dance. The kelp sways in the tide. Jimmy stands beside Lisa and holds out his hand to her, then he shoves her upward by the shoulders. As she rises, the seals twist and weave around her. She doesn’t want to swim when she reaches the surface, but they herd her toward the shore, where Mick and others gather around a bonfire. They sing a mourning song, which she can understand even though it’s in Haisla. When she closes her eyes, she sees Jimmy’s shadow saying, “Tell her.”
Lisa finds herself on the brink of death; Ma-ma-oo’s warning about the potential danger of her power holds true even though Lisa didn’t heed it in time. But this brush with death—her own and that of a loved one—is already different from Lisa’s earlier experience. She gives up fighting against her intuitive knowledge that Jimmy has died, and she inserts this knowledge into a context she can understand and accept—Jimmy’s belief that he was bringing Josh to justice for abusing Karaoke. And while Jimmy’s death remains painful, she feels the peace that accompanies sorrow in the land of the dead, suggesting that she’s now learned enough to move through this loss with more purpose.
Themes
In the present world, Lisa opens her eyes to see light slanting over the mountains. The sky is denim blue. A raven hops overhead in the trees. The crows have disappeared. A seal bobs in the water, and she lies on the sand. She’s warm and so light she could drift away. She hears a howling b’gwus (sasquatch) nearby, and the sound of a speedboat in the distance.
Protected one last time by her brother, Lisa returns to the land of the living, to the present world, where she finds herself washed up on the shore of Monkey Beach. Although she has a new grief to face, she does so with hope. Magic—in the form of sasquatch—still exists in the world. She has a mission, to tell Karaoke what happened. And she knows without a doubt that the dead are not gone forever but lie on the other side of a thin, permeable barrier, never far away from those whom they love.
Themes
