The Music Of Dolphins

Music serves a plethora of purposes in Mila’s life with the humans. Most importantly, it becomes her way of expressing her emotions, of connecting to the sea and to her past, and of telling stories that she cannot put into human words. Music brings out all of Mila’s joy in love and family:

I feel the music inside me. It says something more than just the notes, more than just the sounds. It is hearing with more than the ears. Like the way it is when I am with the dolphins. Or when I see Justin and Dr. Beck together. Or when Sandy talks about her father who is dead. There is a way I feel when Sandy hugs me so good and long and her stiff hair brushes my ear and her good smell fills my nose. The music makes these different feelings inside me, too (76).

Music is also something that Mila feels is an integral aspect of ocean life, as the sounds of the waves and the wind, along with the calls of the dolphins and the gulls and the millions of other creatures, create the most beautiful music that Mila knows. She writes, “The sea is a living music” (96).

When Mila discovers human music, her world instantly transforms. Winter’s compositions move her to tears and she is likewise amazed by Mozart’s sophistication. Listening to Mozart’s music awakens a more complex level of thought in Mila, and her writing becomes more grammatical and reflective. Shortly thereafter, Mila receives a recorder. She learns not only to play existing music on it but also to create her own compositions. Mila discovers that she can use this recorder to tell stories from her life in the sea; in doing so, she can retain her former connection with this world. Even the instrument itself hearkens back to her oceanic knowledge, as it reminds her of a seashell. Playing music is thus an ambivalent experience for Mila, who feels both joy and sorrow when she remembers her dolphin family. She notes:

My music is not like Mozart. It is not like the music in the radio. But it is like the sound I know from the sea. I make a long song, all night, one song. Like the whale who is looking for a mate, I make a song that grows and changes and grows longer. The story becomes different stories, different patterns, making one big pattern (143).

Mila remembers “the long song” that dolphins create when they lose a loved one or feel joy for each other and turns this idea into her own extended musical compositions (100). She finds playing music so soothing that, for a time, she cannot stop—she is simply “so full of music” that she must express it (142). The depth of the music within Mila parallels the depth of the sea that saved and sustained her.

Mila also uses music to connect with Shay and help her to feel joy—something that Shay’s doctors are apparently incapable of doing. Yet when Shay’s awkward attempts at music begin to arouse judgment in Mila instead of compassion, Mila realizes that she has had her fill of being human. In this way, Karen Hesse harnesses Mila’s reaction as a critique of the darker side of What It Means to Be Human—feeling disgust toward those who are different. Hesse likewise employs the moment when Shay breaks Mila’s recorder to foreshadow Mila’s impending break with the human world. An artistic connection with the sea is no longer enough for Mila: She must once again immerse her entire self within it.

As Mila becomes increasingly focused on the goal of returning to the ocean, she finds that music does not bring her the same joy it once did. However, upon her successful reacceptance into her dolphin pod, Mila’s musical abilities reawaken in the form of song. Her vocalized harmonization with her dolphin mother illustrates that Mila has finally recovered the familial connection that she has spent most of the narrative seeking.

The Charles River, located outside the window of the house in which Mila is kept, symbolizes her longing for the sea and the many ways in which her life with humans attempts to imitate, but can never fulfill, the joy that the ocean once brought her. It is Justin’s idea to give Mila a room with a window that faces the river, which he hopes will comfort her. Instead, the river serves as a constant reminder of what is lacking in Mila’s life. Suffering from insomnia, Mila stares out her window at the river and thinks about her old life. Mila’s connection to her dolphin family is one that she cannot replicate with humans. One night, in an act of desperation, Mila attempts to return to the sea by swimming down the river. She calls for her dolphin family, but nobody comes, and soon Mila is lost: “I cannot find the warm sea where the dolphins wait. It is too far, and I am too alone” (68). Mila cannot fight the current but is later rescued and hospitalized. Afterward, her door is locked, further solidifying Mila’s total loss of personal freedom.