Morning Girl

In literature, trees often symbolize life due to their natural process of growing and changing with the seasons and heritage, as the roots of a tree anchor it to the ground like roots in a personal or cultural context. In Morning Girl, the tree to which Star Boy clings during the storm is a powerful symbol of familial and ancestral ties, highlighting the novel’s central theme of The Significance of Cultural and Familial Bonds. Star Boy describes it as follows:

To my right was a very large tree, a special tree with fingers that dug into the earth. Usually the higher branches were filled with red parrots. It was a place people sat under during important times. The trunk was so broad, the bark so old and carved, that you could find in its designs the faces of all the people who have ever died, if you needed to talk to them once more. We went there to look for the new sister when she didn’t come home, and there she was, not far from my grandfather (41).

The tree is an ancient and sacred presence within the community, with its broad trunk carved with the faces of ancestors.