Themes
β’ Family
β’ Perseverance and Hope
β’ Love, Fleeting or Forever
β’ Pain and Illness
β’ Death
Literary Strategies Used to Convey Themes:
1. Formal Aspects of the Book
β’ Third-person omniscient narrator
Topics for discussion
β’ 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:
β’ Why are the chapters arranged in four sections, The Blue Vault of Heaven, The Stone Leaf, Kapu!, and 'Ohana?
β’ What views of the characters are changed between the sections?
β’ 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
β’ Poetic prose
β’ Integration of Hawaiian words
Topics for discussion:
β’ How is the reader's experience hindered or enhanced by the inclusion of Hawaiian words and phrases?