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Chapter 9
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Skellig, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Weakness, Strength, and Hardship
Curiosity, Nature, and Transformation
Love, Empathy, and Caregiving
Imagination, Magic, and Faith
Summary
Analysis
That night, Michael dreams that the baby is being fed by the blackbird in its nest while Mina tells him to stay away. Michael wakes up to the baby crying and Mum comforting her. When everyone is asleep again, Michael gets the aspirin and his takeout tray from the trash. Outside, the blackbird is on the roof. Telling himself he must be crazy, Michael creeps into the garage and over to the chest. Michael presents the aspirin and the 27 and 53 to the creature. The creature laughs without smiling.
Before Mina pointed out the blackbird, Michael might have thought that his life and nature weren’t interconnected. In his dream, however, the two worlds join to form a healing connection between them, as the blackbird’s care for the baby demonstrates. Now, the blackbird becomes an emblem: it sings on the roof while he goes to the creature, suggesting that Michael has something to learn from nature, and perhaps from birds in particular.
Themes
Michael squeezes behind the tea chest and holds the tray up to the creature. The creature slurps the food, groaning with pleasure and pain. Michael puts two aspirin in the sauce. The creature smells like death. Burping, the creature slumps back, saying 27 and 53 are food of the gods. The sauce on his cracked lips looks like blood. Michael asks the creature who he is, and the creature says “nobody.” Michael says that he could ask his sister’s doctor to look at the creature, but the creature refuses. Michael asks if the creature can help his sister. The creature scoffs. Michael tells the creature his name.
The creature represents the epitome of pessimism and surrender. Sarcastically and derogatorily, he calls himself “nobody,” as if to negate his very self. He refuses to be healed or to heal others, suggesting that he has resigned himself to the inevitability of death. In this way, Michael has found someone more pessimistic and hopeless than himself. Having met a creature more helpless than himself, Michael realizes his own strength. Suddenly, he feels a new sense of hope and determination to overcome the death and sickness that surround him.
Themes
The creature tells Michael to leave the aspirin. Michael touches the creature’s shoulder and feels something bony folded up under his jacket. Outside, the blackbird sings. Michael asks who the creature is. The creature says he is nearly nobody, but mostly Arthur Itis, the thing that’s destroying him. Michael asks what’s on the creature’s shoulder, but the creature evades his question. Promising to bring more 27 and 53, Michael leaves. Michael goes to the baby’s crib and feels her delicate bones. Once in bed, Michael dreams that he is in a nest.
The strange bony forms on the creature’s shoulders seem similar to folded-up wings, and the blackbird’s singing seems to confirm this. However, the creature has arthritis, a uniquely human condition that affects the bones. Michael touches the baby just after touching the creature’s shoulders as if to marvel at the similarity between the feel of the creature and the baby’s weak bones. Michael’s final dream seems to confirm the connection between birds and humans.
Themes
