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Chapter 29
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, an owl call wakes Michael. He lies awake thinking about Skellig; he curses himself that he now has to rely on Mina to go see Skellig. Falling back asleep, Michael dreams that Skellig goes to the hospital and carries the baby back to Michael’s yard, where they laugh and call Michael’s name.
The fact that Michael and Mina have developed their own owl call makes it all the more difficult to discern the difference between humanity and nature. Whether in reality or in a dream, the line between animals and humans is no longer strict.
Themes
Michael wakes again. Although he knows it is useless, he tiptoes outside and walks through the dark towards the house where Skellig is. Whisper appears and follows him. When Michael arrives, Mina is sitting on the stoop. Michael sits down and says that he thought Mina didn’t want him to come. Mina says that she and Michael hated each other yesterday, but it is possible to hate one’s friend. Two owls perch on the gate. Mina says that everything is possible at night. Michael looks into Mina’s moonlit face and says he will be her friend. Michael and Mina fall asleep against the door, then wake muttering Skellig’s name.
In the same way that Mina and Michael look closely at the blackbird to see that its feathers are really multicolored rather than black, they now discover that friendship is just as complex and varied—it can contain positive and negative moments and still remain a friendship. This way of looking at things helps move past something that could have destroyed their friendship for good. In viewing situations as always full of complexity, it is impossible to have a doomed view of anything.
Themes
