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Chapter 9
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Stardust, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Youth, Aging, and Maturity
Love and Ownership
Home and Belonging
Rules
The Value of Literature
Summary
Analysis
The two men guarding the gap this evening are Tristran’s former boss, Mr. Brown, and a former classmate, Wystan Pippin. Tristran startles them both when he greets them—and even though Mr. Brown eventually concedes that Tristran might be who he says he is, he can’t let Tristran through. Mr. Brown insists that because there are no rules guiding who gets let through the gap from the Faerie side, he can’t let Tristran through. Tristran is enraged, but Yvaine leads him away. Though Tristran feels homesick, he realizes that perhaps the people in Faerie are his people—he has more in common with them than with Wall’s residents.
Here, people Tristran believed to be his friends and allies reject him. This impresses upon him that he doesn’t belong in Wall. More than that, though, it suggests that Tristran’s time in Faerie has fundamentally changed him, both by helping him come of age and by introducing him to who he really is. Tristran, readers know, isn’t fully mortal: his mother is from Faerie, and this means that he could end up fitting better in either his mother or father’s land.
Themes
Tristran helps a small woman erect and set up her market stall while Yvaine sings. The woman feeds Tristran and gives him wine, which Tristran gulps. He falls asleep drunk, and Yvaine sits next to him, wondering why she doesn’t hate Tristran anymore. The young woman with cat ears comes to sit next to Yvaine, and she wonders if Madame Semele turns people into animals, “or whether she finds the beast inside us, and frees it.” They discuss Tristran’s good heart, and the woman warns Yvaine that if she goes through the wall, she’ll become “a cold, dead thing, sky-fallen.” Yvaine asks about the chain, and the woman says she’s used to it—and then says that you never really get used to it.
Yvaine, in her youth and inexperience, is unable to consider that perhaps she’s come to love Tristran during their journey. The young woman proposes that Madame Semele’s habit of turning people into animals might not be just a way to control them—it may also help them connect with a deeper part of themselves. However, she has nothing nice to say about her chain and the enslavement it connotes. She can’t be who she really is while the chain still binds her to the caravan.
Themes
Yvaine explains that Tristran caught her with a chain once, but he freed her. Now, they’re bound together by an “obligation,” which creates a much stronger bond for stars. The young woman says that she knows Yvaine has the topaz stone, which Yvaine must give to the person who deserves it. Yvaine is suspicious, but the young woman refuses to say who she really is. She says she was the bird in the caravan, and she knows everything about Yvaine and the topaz stone. The young woman won’t say how she recognizes the stone, instead walking back to the caravan.
Yvaine continues to use the word “obligation” to describe her relationship to Tristran—when, again, it seems likely she has come to love him. This reflects her youth, but also her views on love: love does bind people, but because it causes people to feel emotionally invested in their loved ones. The young woman’s provenance becomes increasingly mysterious here, building up to a big reveal shortly.
Themes
Tristran wakes after dawn to a badger in a dressing gown saying that a lady at the gap wants to see him. Thrilled, Tristran wakes Yvaine and tells her he’s off to see Victoria, but he’ll be back for Yvaine later. The lady, it turns out, isn’t Victoria: it’s Louisa. She explains that when Wystan was in the Seventh Magpie last night and when he mentioned Tristran’s attempt to get through the wall, Dunstan lost his temper with both Wystan and Mr. Brown. Mr. Bromios and the vicar are on duty now, and they explain that they made sure they would be here to let Tristran through. The vicar invites Tristran to visit next week so he can share stories of his travels.
In another nod to John Donne’s poem “Song,” the vicar takes on a role similar to that of the poem’s narrator. He invites Tristran to tell him about his travels, just as the poem’s narrator does—and that would presumably entail Tristran sharing whether he’s found a faithful woman yet. That remains to be seen, particularly as Tristran no longer seems as emotionally invested in Victoria as he did when he began his journey. It’s possible, perhaps, that Tristran—not Victoria—is the one who has changed, and who no longer loves her.
Themes
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As Louisa leads Tristran toward Wall, she tells him how sad and worried everyone has been since he left. She also explains that their first stop is Mr. Bromios’s sitting room, where someone is waiting for Tristran. At the door to the sitting room, Louisa hugs Tristran and leaves him to go in. Inside is Victoria. She looks uncomfortable as she remarks that Tristran has become a man. Then, she says she has several difficult things she needs to say without interruption. She apologizes for sending Tristran off in the first place, possibly to his death. Then, she asks Tristran to ask her why she wouldn’t kiss him that night. Tristran notes that she didn’t have to kiss him, though he does note that the star is in the meadow, waiting for her. He asks the question.
Tristran’s journey has caused him to come of age, something that’s obvious to Victoria as she meets him here. Her nervousness and line of questioning suggests that perhaps Stardust will follow its source material, “Song,” and that she’ll share she no longer loves Tristran. Also notable is Tristran’s interjection that Victoria had no obligation to kiss him. This reflects what he’s learned about consent and ownership: he recognizes that Victoria has the right to make choices about who she’s intimate with, and while he hopes to earn her affections, she doesn’t owe him anything.
Themes
Victoria reveals that Mr. Monday had asked for her hand the day before, and she’d come to the shop to ask him to go talk to her father. But she got Tristran instead, and she promised him her hand if he fetched her a star, and she felt awful for either outcome—him dying in the Lands Beyond, or returning with a star ready to marry her. Tristran asks if she loves Mr. Monday. She does, but she says that she’s going to keep her word and marry Tristran, as she feels responsible for everything that happened to him. Tristran takes responsibility for his own actions, but he corrects Victoria: she promised him what he desired. And if she loves Mr. Monday, he wants her to marry him this week and be happy with him. Just then, Mr. Monday knocks and enters. He accepts Tristran’s handshake and congratulations.
Victoria, it turns out, is extremely faithful and honest. She wants to keep her promise to marry Mr. Monday, whom she loves, but she also feels obligated to keep her promise to Tristran and give him her hand, since he brought back the star she asked for. It is possible, this suggests, to find a faithful woman—and in this way, Stardust cheekily subverts the premise of “Song” (that faithful women are impossible to find) by highlighting how faithful Victoria is. Tristran, for his part, doesn’t want to assert his right to Victoria just because she said he could do so if he met certain conditions. This again reflects what Tristran has learned that it is inappropriate to subject others to his will.
Themes
Dunstan is in the Seventh Magpie’s bar, waiting for Tristran. He greets his son and suggests they go home, where Daisy has breakfast waiting for them. As they walk, Dunstan tells Tristran the truth about the circumstances of Tristran’s birth.
Finally, Tristran learns the truth of his parentage. This helps him come of age, as it helps him explain why he feels so at home in Faerie. It’s not just because he ate the food—it’s because he does, as the little hairy man suspected months ago, have biological ties to the land.
Themes
It’s just past noon, and Madame Semele eyes the customers wandering through the market. There aren’t many, and she sighs that this market won’t last many more years. The young woman quips that she doesn’t care—this will be her last market. She holds up her wrist, and Madame Semele can see the chain is thin and almost translucent. Madame Semele accuses the young woman of betraying her, but the young woman reminds her captor that she’ll be enslaved “until the day that the moon lost her daughter, if it occurred in a week when two Mondays came together.”
Madame Semele’s curse, on its face, seems like it will never come true. But readers know now that the moon is Yvaine’s mother—and that Victoria and Mr. Monday are going to marry quickly, thereby bringing two Mondays together in the space of a week. As Madame Semele has kept her word by adhering to technicalities for the entire novel, it’s satisfying to see that the young woman is finally beating Madame Semele at her own game—and the young woman’s freedom is now in reach.
Themes
Yvaine sits near Mr. Bromios’s stall, and eventually, Victoria Forester herself comes over to greet her. Yvaine says she knows of Victoria, but Victoria thinks Yvaine has heard of her wedding. Seeing Yvaine’s obvious discomfort, Victoria says that the man Yvaine is waiting for is terrible for leaving her here. Yvaine decides to go through the gap in the wall, but Victoria won’t let Yvaine leave and chats about her upcoming wedding in six days. She then calls over Mr. Monday to introduce him as her fiancé. Yvaine confirms that Victoria isn’t marrying Tristran and sits down.
Finally, when confronted with Victoria herself, Yvaine finds she can’t ignore that she’s fallen in love with Tristran—and that she doesn’t want Tristran to marry someone else. This suggests that Yvaine has both forgiven Tristran for chaining her to begin with, and that she now sees him as a kind human being who has earned her affections.
Themes
Tristran finally returns several hours later and apologizes for keeping Yvaine waiting. She insists it was better she waited, as she’d turn into a stone if she went through the wall. Tristran is aghast, as he almost took her through last night, and Yvaine takes the opportunity to insult him. He promises not to leave her again, and Yvaine says he definitely won’t. They hold hands and walk through the market, stopping at a book stall when it begins to rain. Tristran nods at a tall man in a top hat and then walks away, and the man tells the bookseller that he won’t get more thanks from Tristran.
Tristran wants to care for Yvaine and keep her safe, as the moon told him to do months ago. So, it’s shocking to discover that he almost hurt Yvaine by taking her into Wall. This revelation suggests to Tristran that he belongs here, with Yvaine—and the two finally begin to admit their love for each other. Tristran doesn’t know it, but the man in the top hat was the one responsible for pushing Dunstan and the young woman together, resulting in his conception.
Themes
Tristran explains to Yvaine that he’s said goodbye to his family, and they discuss how they might get Yvaine in the sky again. Yvaine and Tristran agree that they’re both happy Tristran won’t marry Victoria—and Yvaine reveals that Victoria is a few weeks pregnant. Yvaine notes that she and Tristran probably can’t have children. But Tristran just smiles and kisses her.
Taking the tree’s advice about how to properly possess something or someone, Tristran realizes he’s ready to let Yvaine go if doing so will make her happy. However, instead, the two decide to stick together, completing both of their coming-of-age journeys as they step into a new phase of life.
Themes
The young woman’s chain finally disappears, and Madame Semele insults her former servant. The young woman says that Madame Semele will never insult her again—and she must apologize, as the young woman is Lady Una, the eighty-first Lord of Stormhold’s only daughter. Madame Semele grudgingly apologizes, and Lady Una demands payment for her work, “For these things have their rules.”
As soon as Yvaine makes the choice to stay with Tristran, thereby causing the moon to “lose[] her daughter,” Lady Una’s chain breaks, freeing her. This again highlights the power of true love, or healthy love that isn’t about ownership. And again, drawing on rules that may be arbitrary on their face, Lady Una is able to make the best of the decades she spent enslaved by extracting payment from Madame Semele.
Themes
Tristran and Yvaine are sitting around a campfire with others, and Tristran is shocked that it took him so long to realize that he loves the star. Yvaine says that before they can go anywhere, she has to give the topaz to the right person. Lady Una appears and tells Tristran to ask Yvaine for the topaz: she’s Tristran’s mother. Yvaine gives Tristran the stone on the chain, and Lady Una explains that it was Tristran’s grandfather’s. He’s the last living male Stormhold, and with the topaz, he has the right to rule. Tristran says he doesn’t want to rule, and Lady Una scolds him. But she says that the chain doesn’t tether him to the Stormhold: he can leave. Yvaine isn’t convinced, but she doesn’t want to argue with her future mother-in-law.
Yvaine is still tethered somewhat by the Power of Stormhold—which, Lady Una reveals, rightfully belongs to Tristran. Over the course of the novel, Yvaine has learned that entrapment can look lots of different ways. The fact that the Power of Stormhold symbolically gives Tristran power doesn’t mean it also won’t trap him in certain ways, such as binding him to his duties as the lord of Stormhold. Tristran’s outright refusal to rule suggests that he sides with Yvaine here—while also indicating that despite having matured immensely over the last few months, he isn’t yet ready to settle down.
Themes
Yvaine asks Lady Una to introduce herself, and Lady Una does. She pulls out a glass rose, which she plans to trade for a palanquin so they can return to the Stormhold “in style.” Tristran refuses to join his mother in the palanquin, and Yvaine decides to take a walk while mother and son argue. She stops outside a tent, where an ancient old woman (Morwanneg) hobbles over and reveals that she once tried to cut out Yvaine’s heart. The unicorn’s horn sticks out from the old woman’s pack. Morwanneg explains that she “squandered away all the youth [she] took” as she pursued Yvaine. Sniffing, Morwanneg asks why she hasn’t been able to sense Yvaine’s heart since that night in the mountains. Pitying the woman, Yvaine says that she gave her heart to Tristran. Morwanneg deems this foolish—boys just break hearts. Yvaine ignores this.
Again, having learned so much about control, possession, and obligation, Tristran is wholly uninterested in letting his mother dictate everything about his life now that they’ve reunited. Morwanneg, now ancient, fully admits that she “squandered” her youth trying to pursue Yvaine’s eternal youth. With this, the novel reiterates that chasing youth is a foolish and fruitless endeavor. As Yvaine suggests that Morwanneg can’t sense her heart because she gave it to Tristran, she encapsulates the novel’s insistence that love must be given freely to be real and beneficial. And finally, in a delightful turn, Morwanneg challenges John Donne’s assertion in “Song” that unfaithful women are the problem—as Morwanneg sees it, it’s men and boys who can’t stay faithful.
Themes
Tristran approaches and says that Lady Una will travel to the Stormhold in her palanquin, but he and Yvaine are free to do as they please—and he’d like to do some sightseeing along the way. Yvaine turns back to Morwanneg, who says that the Lilim will be angry that she won’t return with the heart, but it will be okay. Yvaine kisses Morwanneg’s cheek and walks away with Tristran, feeling compassion for the old woman. Tristran looks back at Wall one last time before he and Yvaine begin their journey east.
Yvaine’s shift to feeling compassion for Morwanneg speaks to her own maturation. Morwanneg’s quest for youth, the novel seems to suggest, was absolutely foolish and came with consequences—but this quest is one that many people go on in some form or another, in fictional worlds and in the real world alike. The hope, then, becomes that Yvaine and Tristran—and readers—will see the value in enjoying youth while it lasts, and enjoying middle and old age when it comes rather than chasing eternal youth.
Themes
