Strange the Dreamer

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2017

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Before You Read

Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue

Part 1, Chapters 1-11

Part 2, Chapters 12-22

Part 3, Chapters 23-39

Part 4, Chapters 40-67

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

PrologueChapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue Summary

In the city of Weep, a blue girl falls from the sky after an explosion and is impaled on a finial upon impact. A swarm of moths tries to lift her body away to no avail. The people of Weep take the girl’s blue skin as an ill omen. The girl’s ghost rises above her body and notices that across the city, a metal beast awakens.

Prologue Analysis

The prologue establishes the fantasy setting and foreshadows key events and motifs in the novel. Despite its appearance as a prologue, the scene here actually depicts an event that occurs at the end of the novel, when Sarai topples from the citadel during the explosion and is impaled on a wrought-iron fence below. Laini Taylor leaves the girl unnamed in the prologue, however, creating the impression that this is a past event, not a future one.

Because this scene is framed as a prologue, Taylor implies that it precedes the main sequence of events in the narrative, an effect that is strengthened by the next scenes in Chapter 1, wherein Lazlo experiences the sudden erasure of Weep.