Themes
• Family
• Perseverance and Hope
• Love, Fleeting or Forever
• Pain and Illness
• Death
Literary Strategies Used to Convey Themes:
1. Formal Aspects of the Book
• Third-person omniscient narrator
Topics for discussion
• How is the point of view of the book changed by having a third-person omniscient narrator as opposed to a first person narrator?
2. Structure of chapters
Topics for discussion:
• Why are the chapters arranged in four sections, The Blue Vault of Heaven, The Stone Leaf, Kapu!, and 'Ohana?
• What views of the characters are changed between the sections?
• Why did the author choose to write an endnote, instead of extending the story a few more chapters? How does this help or hinder readers?
3. Language
• Poetic prose
• Integration of Hawaiian words
Topics for discussion:
• How is the reader's experience hindered or enhanced by the inclusion of Hawaiian words and phrases?
