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Chapter 8
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
As Phoebe leads Sal to Mary Lou’s house, Phoebe explains that Mary Lou’s family isn’t as “civilized” as hers. Ben is living there too, but he’s Mary Lou’s cousin, not her brother. The Finneys’ house is loud: Mary Lou has an older sister, three younger brothers, and Ben. There are balls everywhere, and the boys are running around and interrupting everyone. Mr. Finney is reading, fully clothed, in the empty bathtub, while Mrs. Finney is lying on the garage roof. Eventually, Mr. Finney gets out of the tub and throws balls in the backyard with Dennis and Dougie.
Phoebe’s insinuation that the Finneys are uncivilized shows that she has strict expectations about what families should look like and how people should behave. The Finneys’ bustling household and quirky habits are inappropriate rather than interesting in Phoebe’s eyes. Sal, by contrast, doesn’t make any observations about the Finneys like she did about the Winterbottoms. This is perhaps because they remind Sal of her own wild family—and in her eyes, acting “civilized” isn’t necessarily better or more conducive to happiness.
Themes
Last weekend, when there was a sports day at school, Mary Lou and Phoebe’s parents were both there (Dad was not). Phoebe’s parents watched the events, while Mr. and Mrs. Finney participated. Phoebe told Sal she thought Mary Lou was probably embarrassed, but secretly, Sal thought the way the Finneys acted was nice. She wonders if Phoebe secretly wanted her parents to act more like the Finneys.
Sal seems to value closeness and involvement in families, perhaps because she wishes that her own parents were more present. It’s possible that Phoebe feels the same way, and that she’s speaking ill of the Finneys not because she actually disapproves, but because she’s jealous.
Themes
Now, Phoebe and Sal are sitting with Mary Lou in her bedroom. Phoebe is talking about the lunatic while Mary Lou’s brothers run in and out of the room, and Ben is on Mary Lou’s bed. He’s staring at Sal, and out of the blue, he asks if she can sit on her hair. Sal says she can, so Ben draws a cartoon of a lizard with long hair that turns into a chair. He captions it “Salamander sitting on her hair.” Phoebe and Mary Lou, unimpressed, leave the room. But as Sal turns to give Ben the drawing back, Ben leans forward and kisses her collarbone. He grabs the drawing and runs away. Sal is confused—was Ben trying to kiss her lips? Or was it an accident?
Ben’s interest and fumbled kiss are confusing for Sal; she seems unused to the romantic attention. In addition, although Sal’s other classmates have shown interest in her long hair, Ben is the only one who’s reacted to it by asking a seemingly nonsensical question and drawing very literal cartoon. Rather than treating Sal like an oddity, the way their peers do, Ben clearly admires her and is trying to understand her in his own unique, imaginative way.
Themes
As Phoebe and Sal walk home from Mary Lou’s, Phoebe says it was very loud at the Finneys’. Sal says she didn’t mind, and then she remembers Dad once telling Momma that they’d fill their home up with children. But they hadn’t; Sal was their only child, and then Momma left.
Sal believes that the Finneys’ bustling household is the same family dynamic that her parents wanted. The detail that Sal is her parents’ only child calls back to her memory of Momma being pregnant and further implies that the baby either didn’t survive or was put up for adoption. Then, the fact that Sal mentions Momma leaving just after this subtly hints that Momma’s pregnancy was somehow related to her leaving Sal and Dad. Sal’s reflection makes her time at the Finneys’ bittersweet, as she knows that she’ll likely never have siblings of her own.
Themes
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At Phoebe’s house, the girls find Mrs. Winterbottom crying on the couch. Mrs. Winterbottom insists she’s fine, so Phoebe tells her about the “potential lunatic.” This seems to upset Mrs. Winterbottom, and she suggests they don’t tell Mr. Winterbottom about the lunatic. Later, Phoebe tells Sal that this is odd: her mother never keeps secrets from her father. The girls walk onto the porch and find an unmarked envelope on it. There’s a message inside that reads, “Don’t judge a man until you’ve walked two moons in his moccasins.” Phoebe shows Mrs. Winterbottom, who seems anxious. Mr. Winterbottom gets home just then, and he isn’t at all concerned.
Although Mrs. Winterbottom seems just as upset about the lunatic as Phoebe is, the fact that she keeps this a secret from Mr. Winterbottom could suggest that she knows more about the lunatic than Phoebe does and is upset for a different reason. Her secrecy implies that she’s reluctant to be open with Mr. Winterbottom, perhaps because of his tendency to dismiss anything abnormal (like the note that Sal and Phoebe find) as irrelevant to their traditional, respectable family. The note contains Walk Two Moons’s titular saying: it essentially advises the reader not to judge a person unless they fully understand that person’s experiences. This, of course, ties into the way Sal and Phoebe have judged characters like Margaret and the lunatic thus far in the novel. In this way, the note’s mysterious appearance seems almost fated to happen, hinting that the lesson it contains will be an important one for the girls to learn.
Themes
