![]() Minli fashions a kite from her page and Dragon’s red string, then she travels alone up the Never-Ending Mountain. The tiger wounds Dragon, and twins from the village, A-Fu and Da-Fu, trick the tiger into killing himself.Ī-Fu and Da-Fu explain how the villagers released kites into the sky, inadvertently sending their wishes to the Man of the Moon. They have an altercation with Green Tiger, a reincarnation of the greedy Magistrate Tiger (who appears as the antagonist in several of the novel’s stories). Meanwhile, the stone lions at the gates of the city offer Dragon a red string.Īgain on their way to the Never-Ending Mountain, Dragon and Minli encounter a town where seeds rain from the sky, planting gold-flowered trees. The king offers Minli a page from the Book of Fortune with a single line “You only lose what you cling to” (140). They travel toward The City of Bright Moonlight, where Minli asks the king for the “borrowed line” she’ll need for her journey. Minli saves a flightless dragon, and he journeys with her to ask the Man of the Moon why he can’t fly. Ma and Ba begin to follow Minli, but the goldfish man convinces them to trust Minli and await her return at home. Minli leaves a note for her parents, and using the fish’s instructions, she fashions a compass. To thank Minli, the goldfish offers to show her the way to Never-Ending Mountain to meet the Man of the Moon. Feeling guilty, Minli releases the goldfish into the Jade River, which happens to be the goldfish’s original destination. Minli’s journey begins when she purchases a goldfish for good luck from the goldfish man. Screenwriter Christopher Vogel's 12-stage model of the hero's journey, inspired by Joseph Campbell’s model, is useful in tracking Minli’s character arc and themes in Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, even though the author condenses, skips, or rearranges some steps. ![]() When Minli leaves home without her parents' permission, thus begins her hero’s journey, which closely follows the structure of a classic hero's journey. This sets up a sub-conflict in the novel-Ma vs. Minli’s mother, Ma, believes stories to be foolish fantasy, but Minli is willing to risk believing in the impossible. When her father, Ba, tells Minli a story about the all-knowing Old Man of the Moon, Minli determines that the Old Man can solve their problems. The family’s meagre prospects set up the theme of the value of gratitude. Minli feels that, if only Fruitless Mountain would grow green, her family and community would prosper. Legend has it that Fruitless Mountain will only grow green again once Jade Dragon reunites with her long-lost children. Minli and her family live in a small hut in a poor, rainless village at the bottom of a mountain. The novel relies on folk tales, magical events, god-like intervention, rich imagery, and simple language to tell the story of a very ordinary girl with an age-old problem. Storytelling, as a result, becomes a major motif and important plot device. Historical and fantastical stories that Minli is hearing in “real time,” intersperse the main narrative. Where the Mountain Meets the Moon unfolds through a third person omniscient point of view that largely follows its protagonist, Minli.
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