35 pages • 1 hour read
Stargazing
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Music
Music is used to characterize Christine and Moon. It brings them together and demonstrates their differences, and acts as a mechanism through which Moon helps Christine open up and find her confidence.
Christine is seen playing violin with the church on the opening pages of the story. She looks proud and assured as she plays skillfully. The violin, a classical instrument, highlights how Christine is from a traditional background. After the concert, her parents criticize her, illustrating their strictness and high expectations. When Christine meets Moon, she is opened up to an entirely different musical world. Christine usually listens to American pop music. She enjoys Hayden Mills, an all-American blonde, while Moon likes Chara, a Korean pop star who also raps and dances. Hayden Mills and Chara are foils, the way that Christine and Moon are foils. Hayden reflects how Christine fits in with mainstream culture, while Chara, like Moon, is edgy and dark. Chara goes against the grain and isn’t afraid to be herself, just like Moon: “That’s not my desire, this girl too fire” (77). This becomes what Christine admires most in Moon.
Moon teaches Christine how to dance and helps her find the confidence to perform a dance at the school talent show. When Christine and Moon dance, they seem to enter a different state of being and become the music, flowing with it in unison. Every movement is illustrated in sequence to show the complexity and effort behind each one.
Moon’s Visions
Moon’s visions are eventually revealed to be a symptom of her brain tumor, but they are also a symbol of Moon’s spirit and desire for more than an Earth-bound, ordinary life. Moon illustrates the celestial beings that she visualizes. They are womanly-looking human-type figures with kind, smiling faces and flowing, formless bodies made up of various colors. These beings feel comforting and like home to Moon, and she becomes convinced that she will one day return to the stars. Moon, unaware of her tumor, sees her visions as something that makes her unique.
When Moon stops seeing the beings after surgery, they represent a loss of identity. Moon admits that she isn’t sure who she is without her visions. Christine assures Moon that she is amazing enough already and doesn’t need something like that to make her special. It is likely that Moon relied on her visions to give her comfort after losing her father and feeling socially isolated, and as she struggled to form an identity different from those around her.
Food
Food is used to demonstrate the sense of community and cultural tradition in Christine’s family, and to illustrate the cultural divide between her family and Moon’s. Moon and her mother are differentiated by their vegetarianism. Unlike other members of the community, they are struggling financially; food is a way of offering charity, such as when Moon gets food at the church.
Food is also a means of Bridging the Cultural Divide. After eating Mrs. Lin’s dan dan noodles, Christine is won over by Moon’s family. Mrs. Lin’s cooking process is shown in great detail, with each step of her skilled handiwork illustrated in sequence. This emphasizes the importance of food in the narrative.
Food is also a form of comfort, such as when Christine’s father takes Christine out for shaved ice on the night of Moon’s surgery. Christine’s father has fond memories of eating shaved ice in Taiwan and hopes to share that with his daughter—a way of passing along culture in a new country. Food provides an opportunity for Christine and her father to talk seriously about Moon. It brings the characters together, sparks understanding and good will, and demonstrates the importance of maintaining traditions in Asian American cultures.
Space
Space is used to demonstrate Moon’s feelings of being different. Like an alien, she doesn’t feel that she belongs with those on Earth. Instead, she believes that her home is in the stars: “That’s where my real home is. Up there” (85). She is always gazing up at the sky in wonder, and feels a strong connection to some other world. This represents how Moon feels out of place and different from her peers and community. It is also a physical manifestation of her brain tumor.
Space is used to illustrate connection. When Christine and Moon’s class take a field trip to the planetarium, Christine learns about Moon’s secret beliefs, but doesn’t judge her for them. After Moon punches a boy at school, she feels alone and sits under the moonlight. Christine comes to comfort her and plays a song on her violin while reciting the poem about the lonely scholar. Above the two girls, the moon divides into two worlds: one their own, and one of the scholar’s world. On the next page, the moon knits into one, representing how the girls have become closer after conflict. Christine decides to name the dance group the Stargaze Muses after Moon’s special visions and as a way to honor her when she is not able to participate.
Unlock all 35 pages of this Study GuidePlus, gain access to 9,100+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features:
