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Chapter 15
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Girl Who Drank the Moon, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Family and Love
Storytelling, Censorship, and Control
Memory, Forgetting, and the Future
Sorrow vs. Hope
Summary
Analysis
The madwoman can’t remember her name or anyone else’s, but she thinks that a name is useless—a person can’t rock it or tell it they love it over and over again. She knows that at one point she was smart, kind, and capable, but now her mind is disordered. She only remembers paper. She dreams of paper birds and entire worlds made out of paper. The Sisters have no idea where the madwoman’s paper comes from, but she wakes up every morning covered in paper, quills, and ink. The madwoman draws the same map that reads, “she is here” over and over again, and dwells on when Antain asked who she was talking about. She thinks of the cuts and the scars on his face, which are a map that Antain could read if he knew how. She wishes he understood.
For the madwoman, even more horrific than forgetting her name is the near constant sense of loss that she has about losing Luna. This again speaks to the novel’s insistence that the bonds between birth parents and their children are unbreakable and are somehow magical in nature, especially since the map that the madwoman draws presumably leads to Luna and Xan in the swamp.
Themes
Every day, the madwoman releases paper birds out of her window. They all contain maps. At first, the birds don’t go far. People pick them up in the street and pity the madwoman, but none of them read the map. The madwoman sits on the floor of her cell and pulls paper out of the gaps of the world. She draws the map and focuses her consciousness on Antain. She watches him grow up and ask his question over and over again. She sends a paper hawk out the window and it lands at Antain’s feet. He steps on it and reads the map, looking from the Tower to the forest.
When none of the townsfolk read the map, it speaks to their lack of curiosity. Instead of being interested in what the madwoman might be trying to communicate, they instead dwell on their pity for her situation. Antain, however, is more hopeful, especially since he met Ethyne and she looked right at him. Because he’s more hopeful, he’s able to consider that the madwoman has something to say and is therefore able to begin to break free of the Protectorate’s censorship.
Themes
The madwoman feels aware of her own sorrow and thinks she’s been in the Tower for forever. Suddenly, her sorrow transforms into hope. The paper bird and Antain both feel it, and the madwoman’s hope seems to radiate outward. Sister Ignatia cries out in pain.
When Sister Ignatia cries out in pain, it makes it clear that she somehow feeds on or utilizes others’ sorrow, and that hope is dangerous for her. This means that hope will be the one thing capable of overthrowing the controlling government here.
Themes
