65 pages • 2 hours read
Lois LowryMessenger
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2004A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 20-21Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 20 Summary
Kira uses her gift and can sense that Leader is near. While lying down to stop his nose from bleeding, Matty feels Frolic laying limply on his chest and believes that the dog is dead. He is sad that something so alive could become lifeless in such a short period and realizes that the same thing happened to Village. It used to be a peaceful, happy place, but it has become selfish and aggressive.
Kira’s gift meets Leader’s gift halfway, and they’re able to communicate. She tells him that they need him, and he tells her that Forest has trapped him. He tells Kira that it is time for Matty to use his gift. Though she can barely speak, Kira tells Matty that they need his gift. Matty doesn’t understand how his gift can help and gives up, rolling over with his hands in the dirt. His hands begin to vibrate and shimmer.
Chapter 21 Summary
Matty begins to evoke his gift and feels the lightning-like energy warming his blood and rushing through him then out of his hands and into the ground. He hears Kira’s breathing become steady, and he can see the vines that wrapped around Leader’s feet curl and retreat. Somehow, he can see Ramon, who has been lying sick in bed for days, sit up and feel better. Seer feels a warm breeze move through Village, touches the tapestry, and feels that the stitches are smooth as they were originally.
Matty realizes that he was chosen for this moment and feels all his strength and energy enter the earth. The narrator says that he “traded himself for all that he loved and valued, and felt free” (166). Leader, now loosed from the vines, senses the cuts and bruises Forest gave him begin to heal, and the rotting smell is replaced with fresh air. Matty sees Jean in her garden call out to Mentor, who is stooped, balding, and covered in his birthmark once again. He watches the wall builders abandon their work. Matty sees Forest for what it is, an illusion of fear, deceit, and struggles for power. He watches Forest transform into a blooming place of possibility.
Leader finds Kira, and they turn Matty over. His skin is completely healed from the burns. Kira remembers that Matty used to call himself the fiercest of the fierce and tells Leader that Matty wanted his true name to be Messenger. Leader lays his hand on Matty’s forehead and says that there have been many messengers, and there will be many more, but Matty’s true name is Healer.
At the end of the chapter, Frolic returns to Kira, full of energy. Kira stands with her walking stick, and Leader carries Matty’s body as they walk back toward the Village. In the distance, they hear the villagers singing.
Chapters 20-21 Analysis
The final two chapters present the climax and denouement of the story. First, Lowry cements the depressing and hopeless mood. Kira and Matty are stuck in a dark, thorny, overgrown forest that smells of rot so heavily that they can hardly breathe. Leader is trapped similarly. The town that used to represent safety and freedom is closing. The mood and tone of the book have completely shifted from the lightheartedness in the beginning.
Now, the external and internal conflicts in Matty’s life collide. Externally, he is dealing with the physical attacks of Forest, the burns on his arms, his need to take care of Kira and Frolic, and the knowledge that Village is closing soon. Internally, he is dealing with the hopelessness of their situation and his helplessness. He does not think his gift can do anything to change their situation.
Just as he gives up, he places his hands in the dirt and feels his gift activate. He gives himself to his gift fully realizing that this was the moment Leader had warned him about—the great need. In an act of selflessness, Matty “traded himself for all that he loved and valued” (175). Lowry chose to use the word “trade” here, referencing Trade Mart and all the immaterial trades the villagers made. However, this trade is made as a sacrifice for others, whereas all the trades at Trade Mart were selfish and ended up hurting others. This selfless trade reversed the selfish trades everyone else had made.
In trading himself, Matty changed the hearts of the townspeople and the environment of Forest. Lowry writes that Forest was an illusion, “a tangled knot of fears and deceits and dark struggles for power that had disguised itself and almost destroyed everything” (177). When Matty sacrificed himself, he counteracted the selfishness Trade Mart had caused, and untied the knots of fear and deceit, allowing Forest to “bloom, radiant with possibility” (177). In giving up his power, Matty exercised incredible power.
Another climactic moment occurs when Leader gives Matty his true name. This moment is bittersweet because Matty has been looking forward to this moment for the entire story, but when it finally comes, Matty has died. It’s also surprising that Matty’s true name is not Messenger. Contrary to Matty’s hopes and even the book’s title, Leader calls him “Healer.” Every true name that Leader gives reflects the deeper nature of that person. While Matty conveyed messages, his deeper nature was to heal and restore things. Matty healed the deepest parts of people. Physical flaws, like Kira’s twisted leg and Mentor’s birthmark, did not change. Their inner hearts were changed by Matty’s gift, reflecting true healing.
Related Titles
By Lois Lowry
