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Chapter 19
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
Once outside, Michael hurries Mina towards his garage. Michael warns Mina that the place is dirty, but she expresses her excitement. At the garage door, Michael takes the flashlight, beer, and pills from where he hid them. Michael says he is worried that Mina won’t see what Michael has seen. Mina squeezes Michael’s hand and says she will see what is there. Michael leads Mina into the garage, squeezing her hand to reassure her. They make their way through the cobwebs.
Michael is anxious that the difference between what is a figment of his imagination and what is his reality will separate him and Mina. In her response, Mina collapses this difference between imagination and reality, suggesting that all that really matters is “what is there.” If Michael were to let go of his notion of a separate reality and imagined reality, than he and Mina would both see “what is there”—and “what is there” can be some mixture of imagination and reality.
Themes
Michael shines his light behind the chest and Mina stifles a cry. Michael introduces Mina to the creature and then crouches down to help him drink the brown ale. Mina looks on in astonishment. Michael says he met another doctor who could help, but the creature says he wants nobody. Michael tries to feed the creature the cod liver pills, but the creature turns up his nose. Seeing the tears in the creature’s eyes, Michael laments that there is nothing he can do to help him.
Until this point, Mina has been responsible for expanding Michael’s world. Here, Michael gets to expand Mina’s world when he shows her the creature. Mina’s astonished reaction proves that the creature is not a bird, as Mina is very familiar with birds. Michael has opened Mina’s eyes not to simple nature but to some combination of humanity and nature—a creature who eats human food but who is clearly not a human.
Themes
Taking the flashlight, Mina crouches down and asks the creature who he is. The creature says “nobody.” Mina touches his dry cheek and asks if he is dead. The creature says that all kids’ questions are the same, then asks to see Mina. Mina shines the light on her face. Mina says the creature is suffering from calcification, the process by which bone hardens. She says he’s also suffering from ossification, the process by which the mind hardens. Michael guides Mina’s hands to the creature’s strange shoulder blades. Mina’s eyes brighten.
Mina follows her question about who the creature is with the question of whether he is dead. With this question, Mina seems to wonder if the creature is the embodiment of death itself. Although he answers sarcastically, as usual, the creature asks to see her face—something he has never asked of Michael. This shows that the creature’s cold hopelessness is softening; he is growing curious about Michael and Mina and desires to be familiar with them, suggesting that he’s starting to care more about life.
Themes
Mina leans close to the creature and says they can help him. Tears fall from Michael’s eyes. Mina says there is a safe place they can take the creature. Suddenly, Whisper enters and brushes against the creature. The creature murmurs happily at the cat’s softness. When Michael urges him, the creature takes a cod liver pill. The creature opens his eyes and looks at Mina. When Mina asks if they can help him, the creature relents.
This is the first scene in which Michael cries. Significantly, this scene is not one of hopelessness and despair. In fact, this scene is one of hope, and it marks the first time that anything in Michael’s life has shown signs of improvement.
Themes
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