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Chapter 33
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
After school, Michael and Mina paint at the table while Mrs. McKee makes lunch. Michael worries that Mrs. McKee will have questions about the painting of Skellig that Mina made, but Mrs. McKee says the painting reminds her of the angels William Blake said lived all around us. She says she is lucky to have two angels right in front of her. Michael wonders what the baby would see right before the moment of death.
This scene shows that Skellig is neither bird nor human, and that some people—and perhaps adults especially— understand this form through the spiritual idea of an angel. The word angel becomes the name of a being, but Mrs. McKee also uses it to indicate the wonderful nature of Michael and Mina. The spiritual meaning of “angel” is like the spiritual meaning of “wings” for Michael: they indicate a person’s goodness.
Themes
Michael draws a picture of Coot with horns. Mina looks over and proclaims Coot a “demon.” Michael wishes he could see Mina’s wings again. While Mrs. McKee sings a song about how fleeting youth is, Mina whispers that she visited Skellig. Skellig asked for Michael, and Mina gave him Michael’s love, telling him that the baby was very sick. Skellig told Mina he was going away very soon, but he didn’t say where. Trembling, Michael starts drawing Skellig. Mrs. McKee puts lunch on the table.
Michael uses the idea of wings to understand when a person is being more or less wonderful. Here, Mina is being mean about Michael’s school friends—an old fight of theirs—and he concludes that this is an instance of Mina without her wings—an instance in which she is not an angel. In this way, the concept of spiritual wings that can emerge and disappear allows Michael to endure the fluctuations of a person’s nature and avoid fights. In this case, Mina is wingless and cruel now, but she’ll get her wings back and be kind again in the future.
Themes
