Moon Tiger

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1987

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-3

Chapters 4-6

Chapters 7-10

Chapters 11-13

Chapters 14-17

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Chapters 11-13Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 11 Summary

In 1945, Claudia visits a camp for displaced persons on the German-Polish border. She’s writing a story for a newspaper and is amazed by the wealth of languages spoken by the residents in the camp.

Claudia’s thoughts move from the displaced persons camp to Victoria train station, where Gordon met her when she first got home from Egypt. Their experiences during the war, and their time apart, are like a weight between them. Gordon almost feels like a stranger for a moment, and then Claudia embraces him. Next, the scene is described from Gordon’s perspective.

The siblings catch up on the past five years. Claudia is jealous when she hears that Gordon had an American girlfriend while he was in India. She notes that she never felt jealous of Gordon’s wife, Sylvia, but that the “unknown” American made her envious.

Claudia muses that she was in her twenties before she was attracted to any other man more than she was attracted to her brother. She calls incest a form of narcissism, theorizing that what she and Gordon see in each other is a sexualized reflection of themselves.

In her memories, Claudia and Gordon are learning the foxtrot together. There is an electric intimacy between them when they dance. Gordon is a student at Cambridge, and they are both home for the summer. After the music stops, they kiss, thus beginning a love affair that lasts for, as Claudia puts it, “A summer. Two summers, perhaps, and a winter” (139). Claudia is very aware of how this affair changes their relationship; for the rest of their lives, they will have a closeness that excludes other people. She thinks that only Sylvia ever had an inkling of what that closeness stemmed from.

Claudia describes the scene in which Sylvia may have suspected their incest—a dinner that Gordon, Sylvia, and Claudia had with their mother. The same scene is then described from Sylvia’s perspective. Sylvia, above all, hates to feel excluded by the siblings. They deflect her attempts at conversation with humor that she doesn’t get, and she leaves the table.

Chapter 12 Summary

Jasper visits Claudia in the hospital. She attempts to start a debate with him, about his continued involvement with the film industry. He tells her that he doesn’t want to argue. Claudia tells him that she has always enjoyed arguing with him.

Seeing Jasper makes Claudia think about greed. She muses that she’s always been interested in history’s greedy, opportunistic figures. She is amused by Jasper’s greed as well.

Claudia recalls a trip that she took with Jasper to Normandy, France. They attend a conference for academics and diplomats—Jasper is looking to make connections to further his career. Claudia is enraged when he asks her to pretend to be his assistant. In the end, she meets a newspaper mogul and eventually writes for prestigious newspapers because of the introduction. She notes that Jasper resents her success. While they are in Normandy, Claudia’s memories of Tom overpower her, and she refuses to have sex with Jasper when her thoughts are so full of Tom.

Chapter 13 Summary

In the hospital, Claudia describes last night’s nightmare to the nurse. She dreamed of a 16th-century battle between the Aztecs and the Spaniards. Her description is graphic and overly detailed. The nurse soon gets tired of listening to her.

In 1954, Claudia writes a book about Hernando Cortez in Mexico. The book is a best seller. The book’s success leads to a film studio hiring Claudia to be the historical consultant on a film about Montezuma and Cortez. She travels to the film set in Spain for the job. The producers aren’t overly concerned with historical accuracy, but she is restless, and the experience is a new one, which is good enough motivation for her. She goes out to dinner with the actor playing Cortez, a man whom she finds very handsome and very stupid. They have a car accident after dinner. The brush with death leaves Claudia shaken.

Claudia imagines that in the history of the world that she’s writing, perhaps she could infuse sound in her description of Cortez’s exploits. Sound would be more evocative and realistic than written words, she thinks.

Chapters 11-13 Analysis

Claudia’s relationship with Gordon is the central relationship described in Chapters 11-13, with Chapter 11 revealing the incest that earlier chapters have foreshadowed. Claudia’s close relationship with her brother reinforces the theme of The Impact of Relationships on Self-Identity, as Claudia is very aware of the way love for and competition with Gordon have shaped her personality. The influence of her relationship with Gordon is something that she observes throughout the book, noticing that many of her childhood behaviors were motivated not by her own interest or desires, but by her urge to compete with her brother. Chapter 11 deepens the reader’s understanding of this formative relationship, as Claudia discusses the narcissistic impulse that attracted her to her brother: She sees him as the male version of herself. Their incestuous relationship not only shapes how Claudia thinks of herself but also transforms the way the siblings relate to each other. Claudia reflects on that change much in line with how she reflects on memory more broadly: “That time went; it is also forever there, conditioning how we are with one another. Because of it, other people are still excluded” (140). This intimate, exclusionary relationship characterizes Gordon’s and Claudia’s interactions for the entirety of their adult lives, as they are both very young when they have their affair.

The final scene in Chapter 13, which describes Gordon’s visit to Claudia in the hospital in Madrid after the car accident, relies on shifting perspective to lend Claudia’s narrative some credibility. As Gordon died before Claudia’s cancer diagnosis, he is not one of the characters who visit her on her deathbed. The parallel hospital scenes, though, offer insight into Gordon as a character and thereby reinforce Gordon and Claudia’s closeness. Given the other encounters and alternative perspectives that highlight The Subjective Nature of Memory, this passage suggests the power of those rare instances when memory aligns. Claudia is more emotional and vulnerable with Gordon in this moment than she is with any of her visitors at the end of her life. The siblings’ closeness is also reinforced by the shift in perspectives. They each come away from the moment with nearly identical observations: “Claudia lies looking at him. He is more inaccessible than anyone in the world, she thinks; more intensely known and more inaccessible” (164). Gordon observes, in parallel: “Claudia is both closer to and further from him than anyone else” (165). The symmetry in their thoughts reinforces their closeness while also confirming that, at least in her observations about her brother, Claudia is reliable—she has described her unique relationship with Gordon honestly and accurately.

In the early chapters of the novel, the narration moves around freely in time, sometimes describing (or hinting at) events during the war, during Claudia’s childhood, or during her life after the war. That pattern changes after Claudia returns home in Chapter 11. Chapters 11-13 do not contain any descriptions of her time in Egypt, or of Tom. After the strong focus on Tom in Chapters 7-10, this is a stark difference, a stylistic move that Lively makes to underscore the depth of loss that Claudia feels: In short, Lively strives to ensure that the reader also acutely feels Tom’s absence.

Lively uses the literary device of sensory detail to great effect throughout the novel; Claudia’s memories of her surroundings are often rich with evocative visual details as well as descriptions of sound. These sensory details further Claudia’s characterization as an energetic, sensuous woman who appreciates vivid experiences that make her feel truly connected to a moment. Chapter 13 is notable for its sensory description, especially the description of sound. Claudia acknowledges the power of sound to evoke emotion and connection when she imagines that her “history of the world” will tell about the fall of Tezcuco through sound: “Sights one can conjure up in the head; sound is more elusive,” she thinks, resolving to channel that power: “My readers shall hear, at this point—they shall become listeners” (158). This dedication to sensory detail not only enhances Claudia’s characterization but also reinforces the theme of The Intersection of Personal and Global Histories. Claudia wants to include sound in her history because she wants to personalize “a climactic moment in history” (158); she wants her history to feel real and immediate.