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Chapter 34
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
The sun sets, and Dad still doesn’t come. Michael keeps checking the driveway for his car. Meanwhile, Michael and Mina draw. Michael draws Mina, Ernie Myers, the baby, and Skellig in the baby’s hospital room. Michael wonders what made Skellig change. Looking at his drawings, Mina says Michael is getting braver. Mrs. McKee and Mina sing and say that Michael will be singing soon, too. Mina dissolves a pellet in warm water, extracting a tiny skull; she explains that owls eat their prey whole and then cough up the bones. Whispering, Mina says she found this pellet in the garage beside Skellig.
Scientifically, the pellet proves that Skellig is an owl. However, Michael and Mina do not react as though all their questions have been resolved; instead, their wonder increases with the discovery. Skellig’s relation to an owl is surprising, suggesting that his appearance is nothing like that of an owl. The pellet is further fascinating because it contains undigested bones; bones often symbolize weakness and mortality in the story, but here the story presents them as the most resilient part of the body—not even being eaten by another animal can destroy one’s bones.
Themes
At last, Dad calls. He tells Michael that the baby is fine and that the operation is tomorrow. After Michael asks several times, Dad says that the doctors are operating on the baby’s heart. Michael drops the phone.
Michael is afraid because he now sees the medical process as violent and potentially harmful. A heart operation sounds like violence and mutilation compared to how Michael protected the heart by listening to it alongside his own heart.
Themes
