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Chapter 18
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
Michael doesn’t find Mina in her yard, so he rings the doorbell of her house. Mina’s mother opens the door and introduces herself as Mrs. McKee. Mrs. McKee asks about the baby and says that babies are fighters. Mina comes to the door wearing a paint-splattered apron; she leads Michael to the kitchen, where bags of clay and tools cover the table. Mina shows Michael the bird she is sculpting and explains how she’ll hang it from the ceiling when it’s done. Mrs. McKee says that Mina has been very interested in birds lately.
Mina and Mrs. McKee’s artistic lifestyle introduces Michael to the transformative world of creation in which anything can be transformed into something else. Art and creation suggest as avenue for Michael to find hope during this time when everything in his life feels fixed in a bad state. Even Mrs. McKee’s comment that babies are fighters shows a creative sensibility: babies, who are usually associated with helplessness and frailty, can be reconceived as symbols of strength.
Themes
Following Mina’s instruction, Michael shapes a piece of clay into different animals and then into the shape of the baby’s head. Mina tells her mother that she told Michael about their opinions on school and William Blake. Mrs. McKee laughs. The clay goes dry in Michael’s hands; he looks meaningfully at Mina. Understanding, Mina wraps up the clay and asks if she and Michael can go for a walk.
The clay going dry suggests that the freedom that art provides can only go so far toward real change. Michael deconstructs the limits between the baby and animals through clay sculpting, exploring her transformation to health, but when the clay goes dry, he presumably remembers the creature and his real responsibility to help him.
Themes
