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Chapter 2
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Stargirl, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Individuality and Conformity
Human Nature
Seeing, Visibility, and Invisibility
Friendship, Love, and Social Pressure
Summary
Analysis
Kevin and Leo start fighting. Kevin wants Leo to recruit Stargirl for Hot Seat. Leo, unsure, keeps hesitating. Kevin is furious. He and Leo don’t typically disagree, especially when it comes to Hot Seat, the show they invented and together convinced the faculty to let them run. Leo isn’t sure why he feels this way—it’s just a vague feeling that Stargirl should be left alone.
Leo’s sensitivity to Stargirl leads him to feel protective of her. He senses that Kevin’s interest in Stargirl is more exploitative, more in line with the grain of Mica High’s culture. Leo himself feels conflicted about catering to that culture, especially at the expense of someone he instinctively likes.
Themes
Meanwhile, rumors run wild about Stargirl. People move on from Hillari’s claim that Stargirl is fake. Instead, they imagine that she’s “homeschooling gone amok,” or an alien, or a ghost town resident. She continues to baffle, placing a tablecloth and a wilting daisy on her desk during each class. She also provokes curiosity—her laughter, dancing, and looks of astonishment making kids wonder what they’re missing.
Stargirl’s wide-eyed wonder, expressed in her evident delight over everyday things, starts to shake other kids out of their complacency about themselves and their world. But they still try to find a box to assign her to, suggesting that people naturally search for ways to smoothly categorize one another.
Themes
Leo keeps his distance from Stargirl, though he’s curious, “[observing] her as if she were a bird in an aviary.” He panics when their paths cross, feeling shaken and “goofy.” But then, one day, he follows Stargirl after school, trailing her all over Mica. He watches as she leaves something in a mailbox and then peeks inside to find a handmade “Congratulations” card. Eventually he follows her out of town and into the desert sunset. He watches her playing and singing into the sunset, resists the urge to call after her, and eventually runs back to the highway.
Leo still just watches Stargirl, seeing her as something remote and outside of himself that he wants to study. At the same time, he’s also personally drawn to her and the mystery she represents. The desert will come to symbolize a place where the mundane becomes beautiful. Stargirl is at home in such a world; Leo isn’t yet ready to follow her there.
Themes
