Previous
Chapter 22
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Stargirl, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Individuality and Conformity
Human Nature
Seeing, Visibility, and Invisibility
Friendship, Love, and Social Pressure
Summary
Analysis
Leo’s favorite times are the weekends he and Stargirl spend alone together, walking in the desert, people-watching, and visiting Archie. But on Mondays, the shunning always hits home again. While people don’t ignore Leo as totally as they do Stargirl, they seldom acknowledge him. He realizes “how much I needed the attention of others to confirm my own presence.”
Leo continues to navigate the margins of two overlapping worlds: the happy one he shares with Stargirl and the cold realities of Mica High. He’s learning some unwelcome things about himself, especially his need for the approval of his peers.
Themes
Leo knows he’s being ignored because Stargirl has become part of his identity. They’re mean to Stargirl because they think she thinks she’s better than her classmates and is a “phony.” But above all, they’re still angry that she supposedly sabotaged the Electrons by cheering for their opponents and helping the injured Kovac. They hate Stargirl for this.
Stargirl’s classmates exhibit a very different way of thinking about the world—one that’s preoccupied with their own status and an us-and-them mentality. Stargirl is shunned because she violates both these frameworks.
Themes
Stargirl remains oblivious to her classmates’ attitudes toward her. Leo is painfully conscious of it, however, and “something small and huddled within me” even agrees with their position. He suffers over it all and keeps remembering Señor Saguaro’s question: whose affection does he value more? He keeps thinking he won’t have to choose; that somehow, he can have it all.
