81 pages • 2 hours read
Where The Mountain Meets The Moon
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Chapters 5-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 5 Summary
Minli secretly prepares to leave home for Never-Ending Mountain. She leaves work early and makes dinner for her parents, per usual. She leaves them a note alerting them of her departure and signs it: “Your obedient daughter, Minli” (31). She debates the accuracy of the word “obedient”—she knows that her parents would not want her to leave, but her parents also didn’t explicitly forbid her leaving. Still uncertain, Minli packs her belongings, which include survival tools, her bowl with the white rabbit, and her remaining coin. Finally, she sets off on her journey.
Chapter 6 Summary
Minli leaves her village, unnoticed by her neighbors. When she reaches the base of Fruitless Mountain, she performs a set of small tasks based on instructions she received from the goldfish. First, she takes a rock from the mountain and rubs a needle with it 99 times. Then, she places a piece of bamboo and water in her bowl so that the bamboo floats. Finally, she asks the rabbit on the bowl which way to go and places the needle on the bamboo. The needle turns in the bowl like the needle of a compass and points the way, past Fruitless Mountain. Minli heads in that direction, straying far from her village into the forest, until she falls asleep at sundown.
Chapter 7 Summary
Ma and Ba come home to an empty house and discover Minli’s note. Ma panics and blames Ba’s stories for inspiring Minli to set out on what she believes is a pointless journey. Ba is upset, too, but he tries to comfort Ma. The villagers hear Ma’s screams and make fun of Minli for leaving: “Foolish Minli! She is trying to do the impossible!” (38). Ma and Ba set out to find Minli and bring her home; they discover a set of footprints next to a long, thin line and, guessing that they must be Minli’s, follow the trail.
Chapter 8 Summary
Minli awakens with the sun on the first morning of her journey, worried about her parents finding her note. As she walks under the hot sun, she drinks the last of her jug of water and then drinks from a stream, only she’s surprised to find that the water is salty. The ocean is nowhere near, so Minli grows curious and follows the stream until it turns into a river. Suddenly, a voice beckons her from the water, asking for help. When Minli dives in, she discovers the voice belongs to a dragon.
Chapter 9 Summary
Ma and Ba follow the tracks through the forest, lighting their way with a lantern. Ba wants to rest and conserve energy, but Ma insists they keep going. She’s motivated by her anger with Minli, and she blames Ba for filling their daughter with senseless notions. At daybreak, they hear a noise, but it’s not Minli they’ve found: it’s the goldfish man.
Chapters 5-9 Analysis
In this section, Minli performs the fifth step in the hero’s journey: “Crossing the Threshold.” She packs her bag and hesitates before leaving, burdened by worry about what her parents will think. She crosses through town and makes note of the neighbor children playing in the mud, taking in her “ordinary world” one last time before her hero’s quest begins. When she finishes making her compass out of her bowl and needle and asks the rabbit which way to go, she’s committing to the journey. As she takes her first steps through the forest, she’s officially crossed the threshold. Even on the first morning after the first night, she finds herself worrying about her parents finding her note; though her journey is firmly underway, her heart is still back at home, and she’s still not totally sure about what she’s doing.
Minli struggles with defining her own character in this section. She wonders whether or not she should call herself “obedient” (31) at the moment she decides to leave home, which demonstrates that she does value obedience, or at least her parents’ approval. What more accurately emerges as one of Minli’s dominant qualities is dutifulness. Her pursuit of a better life for her family arises, at least partially, out a sense of duty to her family. Then, when the goldfish tells her what to do to get to Never-Ending Mountain, she listens closely and carefully performs the tasks as prescribed.
Competing with Minli's sense of duty, however, is her curiosity. It’s what sends her on this quest in general and what leads from step to step on the quest: she follows the stream of salty water, then hears the voice coming from the river. Minli’s curiosity is what leads her to Dragon, who will become her partner in her quest.
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