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Chapter 20
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Walk Two Moons, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Judgment, Perspective, and Storytelling
Parents, Children, and Growing Up
Grief
Nature
Summary
Analysis
Phoebe shows up at school the next day with a thin smile that looks like it’s been pasted on. She maintains this all day, and she tells Sal to come spend the night tomorrow night. Mr. Birkway assigns the students an exercise: they must draw their souls in 15 seconds. The students stare at him for a few seconds, and then Sal puts her pencil to her paper.
Phoebe may have been pushing her mother away before Mrs. Winterbottom left, but her reaction to her mother’s absence shows how much she relied on having Mrs. Winterbottom around. Even if Mrs. Winterbottom annoyed Phoebe, Phoebe still feels lost and afraid without her.
Themes
When the time is up, Mr. Birkway collects everyone’s drawings and puts them on the bulletin board. Sal is shocked. Every person drew a central shape, such as a heart, square, or triangle. And inside each shape is a design, such as a cross or a window. Sal thinks the one with a teardrop inside must be Phoebe’s. There are two drawings that are exactly the same: Sal and Ben’s. They both drew maple leaves inside of circles.
The result of this exercise suggests that the people in Sal’s class aren’t that different from one another; they all drew much the same things, after all. But Sal and Ben drawing the exact same thing indicates that they’re deeply connected in a way that’s mysterious both to them or to outsiders. Furthermore, the fact that Sal draws a maple leaf indicates that she sees her soul as intrinsically connected to Momma (whose name means “maple sugar”) and to the natural world.
Themes
