Essay Questions

What tactics are used by the elders to exploit the people living within the Protectorate that they are controlling?

Kelly Barnhill portrays the elders as exploiters who are employing evil tactics to manipulate the people living in the Protectorate. The first method employed by the elders is instilling anxiety into the people. For instance, they often lead people to the Witch to offer sacrifices who is believed to live in the treacherous woods. People live in fear because they believe that going against the elders is an atrocity. The second ploy employed by the elders is creating false stories that scare people to want to run away from the protectorate. There is lone one way that exits the protectorate to the cities and other places and it is manned and controlled by the elders. Anyone using this road must pay a certain amount of money to the elders. Thirdly, the elders control the natural resources within the Protectorate and anyone using those resources must pay a fee. These elders are aware of their evil deeds and everything they do is to exploit and manipulate the people.

What is the importance of the character Luna in The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill?

At first, Kelly Barnhill uncovers to the reader that the witch to whom the sacrifice is made by the elders is non-existent because it is a made-up story to scare the people of the Protectorate. The elders take every first-born child for the sacrifice in the woods in which the villagers believe the witch lives. However, once the baby is abandoned there in the forest, the elders know precisely that animals will eat the baby. However, the story of Luna is different. When she is left in the forest by the elders, the witch called Xan comes and takes the baby to raise her. Xan raises Luna to become a very powerful woman with enchanted supremacies. Kelly Barnhill uses the character Luna as a symbol of redemption to the people of the Protectorate. When she is fully grown, she reunites with her mother and comes to save her people from natural calamities.

Give one example of how Kelly Barnhill uses the literary device irony in The Girl Who Drank the Moon.

The Protectorate Elders believe that there is no witch in the forest in which they take children for sacrifices. According to them, this is a made-up story to scare away the villagers so as to exploit them. Ironically, there is a true witch in the forest called Xan whom the elders have no clue about. Every child they take for the sacrifice, they believe that is eaten by the animals. On the contrary, there is no single child who is eaten by animals because the children are taken by the witch and they end up in cities and other places when they grow up.