She is a special girl who can play music, even though she isn't supposed to, and who wants to be different from other people. She runs away because she cannot play her music, and develops her independence and sense of herself while she lives in the cave and takes care of the fire-lizard babies. She has many adventures, and learns there are other societies that are more liberal than her own. Finally, her own Harper finds her and discovers she wrote two of the songs he sings, and he allows her to take her place at Harper Hall to try to become a leader of her people.
Theme - the theme of the novel is the roles of men and women, and that Menolly cannot do the same things men can do. "Yanus would certainly have looked askance at any able-bodied lad who spent too much time tuning" (80). No one will admit a girl can be a tuner, or should be a tuner. "She wondered if he didn't want her - a mere girl - to play men's songs" (16). This shows her place in society and how she does not fit...
"I must have one basin for the greens, auntie" (29). The women do "women's" work like cooking and cleaning, and take care of the men; they don't have an equal society.
Elements of fantasy - This is a fantasy because it uses settings that are made up, it uses elements of fantasy like dragons, and it takes place somewhere that is like Earth, but isn't Earth. It would be science fiction if there was science involved, like trying to build a rocket to get back to Earth, but this is pure fantasy. "Fire lizards! And they were like dragons. Only much, much smaller" (23). This shows the book is a fantasy, because there are no such things as dragons, but they are common in fantasy novels. "The leading edge of Thread had tipped the marshes" (36). Thread kills everything it touches, and it comes from another planet. "The transparent brown wings unfolded, flapping weakly to dry" (69). This describes the dragon, another element of the fantasy. If this was science fiction, the…
