Dragonsong

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes descriptions of animal death, bullying, mental illness, gender discrimination, child abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, and death.

Menolly’s transformative journey to becoming a Harper guides the theme of empowerment through self-expression. This theme connects to the novella’s genre as a coming-of-age story because the protagonist’s pursuit of music is at the heart of her growing independence and self-belief. McCaffrey establishes the importance of art in Menolly’s life and her need for empowerment by showing how her circumstances at Half-Circle Sea Hold limit her opportunities for self-expression. As Elgion observes, “Anyone sensitive enough to compose such melodies must have found life in the Sea Hold intolerable: doubly so with Yanus as Sea Holder and father. And then to be considered a disgrace!” (108). Faced with these obstacles, Menolly takes bold action to empower herself. When her parents try to crush her dreams, she chooses to live alone rather than surrender her music, which is her chosen mode of self-expression. McCaffrey describes Menolly’s voice as “rough and uncertain” (56) when she first sings to the