Speaker for the Dead | Themes

Speaker for the Dead Themes

Sin and Redemption

Sin and redemption come into this novel as a theme several different ways. The first way is through Novinha. Novinha is a sad young lady who cuts herself off from an entire when the colonists' celebrations about her parents discovery of a cure for the plague coincides with her parents' deaths from the same plague. Novinha finally finds some happiness when Pipo and Libo take her in and treate her as an equal. Novinha finds love in Libo and a father in Pipo. However, after making some surprising discoveries in her scientific work, Novinha shows these discoveries to Pipo. Pipo goes to ask the piggies about the discoveries and is killed shortly thereafter. Novinha believes that her work is what killed Pipo and refuses to show it to anyone else, especially Libo, going so far as to refuse to marry the only man she loves to hide this secret. Then...
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