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Chapter 24
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
At the hospital, the baby has tubes connected to her again. Michael listens deeply until he feels he can hear the baby’s heart beating. He worries that if he stops listening to her heart, it will stop beating. As Michael and Dad leave, they run into the arthritic woman with the walker. She tells Michael that she’ll be dancing soon. Noticing that Michael is sad, she says she is sure Michael’s friend will get better soon. Dad is too distracted to ask what the woman is talking about. In the car, tears stream down Dad’s face. Michael feels the baby’s heart beating inside his own.
Though Michael once felt helpless to save his sister, he now feels that he has a responsibility for the baby’s health. Michael has learned to use his senses to access experiences that he previously could not access. In this way, senses became tools. The baby’s steadily weakening heart can be tracked by beats becoming fainter and fainter as if slipping away. Michael feels that listening to the baby’s heart is a way of holding on to it: that the communication that human senses enable has the ability to sustain life.
Themes
