48 pages • 1 hour read
James Ramsey UllmanBanner In The Sky
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1954A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 1-3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “A Boy and a Mountain”
It’s 1865 in Kurtal, a former farming village that is now a resort in the Swiss Alps, and Rudi Matt is 16. He is smaller and slimmer than the other boys his age and has very light-colored skin, hair, and eyes. Rudi tries to tan his face to make him seem rugged, like the mountain climbers in his village. He works at the Beau Site Hotel as a dishwasher. He slips out of work—which doesn’t bother the cook, Old Teo Zurbriggen—and walks to the edge of town, through wildflower meadows, and toward the mountains. In nature, Rudi’s limbs and lungs are doing “what they had been born to do” (13). Rudi stops at a small box, nailed to a tree in the highest meadow, which contains a cross and a chipped image of the Virgin Mary. “Josef Matt,” the name of Rudi’s father, who died when he was a baby, is carved on the lid. Rudi climbs with his staff, thinking of his father; he’s solemn for a bit, but he can’t stay upset when he’s climbing.
Over the past decade, Kurtal began attracting an abundance of tourists. This is how the “sport, the craft, the adventure of mountaineering had been born” (17). All the mountains in the area have been conquered except the Citadel. No one has even tried to climb it in the past 15 years. Rudi has climbed across the glaciers in the entire area, often skipping school, church, or work to do so and upsetting his mother. “Nothing in heaven or earth” (21) can keep him from climbing. He climbs to the Blue Glacier, right at the base of the Citadel, and hears a groan like “the voice of a mountain demon” (24) coming from a crevasse in the glacier.
Chapter 2 Summary: “A Boy and a Man”
Rudi sees a man in the crevasse who speaks German with a foreign accent; he has been stuck there for about three hours. He asks Rudi to get help, but Rudi knows it would take too long—the man could freeze to death. Rudi takes his shirt and then his pants off, tying them into knots at the end of the staff like a “crazy fishing line” (28). He braces himself, knowing that if he falls, they will both die. Rudi feels like his muscles are “drawn one by one from the bones that held them” (29). Finally, the man makes it out and collapses. He is shocked to see that Rudi is so small yet managed to pull him out of the crevasse.
Rudi is so exhausted that he is “too numb or weak to move or speak” (30). The tall, thin man, who is about 30 and has dark hair, “a big hawklike nose and a strong jutting chin” (31), thanks him for saving his life. Rudi realizes he is Captain Winter, the “foremost mountaineer of his day” (32). Although Winter never met Rudi’s father, he knows of the “great guide,” which fills Rudi with pride. (Rudi’s father died climbing the Citadel 15 years ago.) They discuss whether the Citadel can be climbed. Like Winter, Rudi’s father thought it was possible; his uncle says it’s off-limits. Winter is thinking of going to the next valley, Broli, where a guide named Emil Saxo lives. Winter realizes Rudi wants to climb the mountain, and he encourages him to do it. Rudi thinks the only possible route is up the southeast side, but his father approached the mountain from that side and died. Worried for her son’s safety, Rudi’s mother insists that he go into the hotel business rather than mountaineering, much to his dismay. Rudi asks Winter to not to tell anyone about their meeting, since it would upset his mother.
Chapter 3 Summary: “Two Hundred Dirty Dishes”
At the Beau Site Hotel, Old Teo prepares dinner after washing the dishes Rudi left behind. While the waitress grumbles about Rudi running out, Teo covers for him, saying that Rudi is caring for his sick mother. Old Teo is only 55, but his skin is wrinkled, and his hair is white. He was crippled in an accident on the Citadel 15 years before, climbing with Josef and their employer, Sir Edward Stephenson. When Franz arrives asking for Rudi, Teo claims he is running an errand, just as the waitress, Gretchen, arrives, commenting on Rudi’s mother’s illness. Franz realizes he “has sneaked off again” (41), grumbling that Rudi doesn’t belong on the mountain. Teo comments that “you cannot bottle the wind” (41). Since Rudi isn’t a child anymore, Teo thinks he should be allowed to learn climbing, since “the mountains are in his blood” (42).
Franz arrives at his sister’s home to explain where Rudi went. Since Rudi is “wild and willful” (44), Franz thinks he should go train in Zurich, away from the mountains. They agree that Rudi is too small, not “built for the mountains” (44). Rudi arrives, caught in his lie that he was working. He apologizes for lying and turns to leave for the hotel. Just then, Winter arrives and introduces himself. He requests Franz’s help as a guide for his climb of the Wunderhorn the next day. Winter explains that Rudi saved his life and asks if he can join their climb. Although Ilse is hesitant, she eventually agrees to let him go.
Chapters 1-3 Analysis
Maturity and Masculinity is one of the major themes introduced in this first section. Rudi is a young, ambitious teenager who feels trapped. First, he feels limited by his physical appearance. He is “small and slim” (11) compared to the other boys his age, and he is teased with names like “angel face” because of his fair complexion. This is why he “expose[s] his face for hours to the burning sun” (13) and rubs it with snow in the winter. His attempts to make his face appear “like a mountain man’s should be” (13) reveal his desire to embody traditional models of masculinity rooted in being rugged and physically powerful like the men he sees working outside in his mountain town. Rudi is limited not only by his physique but also by his mother’s and his uncle’s restrictions. Because of his father’s fatal accident, Ilse and Franz overprotect Rudi, stripping him of his legacy as a mountain climber and depriving him of the physical outlet for his energy that he craves. He is so desperate to live out his image of masculinity that he skips school, church, and work to escape into the mountains. Rudi’s teenage rebellion is rooted in his longing to feel connected to his father and develop the physical strength that he had. The first thing he does in the woods is visit his father’s small shrine. While Ilse and Franz want to shelter Rudi, other characters encourage his endeavors. Old Teo covers for him when he is out climbing, and when Rudi leaves abruptly, “He smiled because he knew what the boy was up to and in his old heart, he was glad” (12).
This section also introduces the theme of The Relationship Between Humans and Nature. Rudi feels a peace as soon as he leaves the town and reaches the mountains: “He was no longer hurrying. He walked with the slow, rhythmic pace of the mountain people” (13). Being in nature encourages Rudi, fills him with peace, and lets him feel more connected to his father’s legacy. The first chapters reveal the perpetual human desire to conquer nature. During the 19th century, people moved to the small mountain towns “first in trickles, then in droves” (17). The entire economy shifted as farmers and herders became Alpine guides, and being a guide became “the highest honor that a man could attain” (17). The descriptions of the Citadel are filled with reverence and fear. Rudi thinks the mountain is “beautiful and menacing, beckoning and unknowing” (23). While nature is peaceful, it is also dangerous.
Rudi’s act of saving Winter makes it clear that he will have to choose between climbing and obeying his mother. Their meeting also shows his courage and his willingness to risk his own safety for others. When he hears Winter’s cries, he immediately comes to his aid, despite the warning that Winter’s weight will pull Rudi in. Although the ice “bit cold and rough, into his bare chest” (27), Rudi doesn’t notice his pain. The reader later realizes the significance of this action, as Rudi’s father died saving the man he was climbing with, and Rudi will have to choose between saving another climber and securing his own victory.
