Morning Girl

Content Warning: This section includes discussions of colonization and miscarriage.

Morning Girl is the protagonist, title character, and co-narrator of Morning Girl. Throughout the story, she undergoes a coming-of-age process, maturing and discovering her identity. The new name her brother gives her, The One Who Stands Beside, symbolizes this transformation and reflects their evolving relationship. The narrative does not specify her age, but she is likely around 10 years old based on her behaviors and life challenges.

The narrative characterizes Morning Girl by her love for mornings and tendency to rise early with something on her mind, a trait that gives her name. She likes to explore the island at dawn before everyone else wakes up. Like all the characters, Morning Girl has a deep Respect for the Natural World. She claims that in the morning, “Outside, at least, belonged to me since no one else was around” (5). She enjoys running, swimming, climbing, and picking flowers. She often frequently uses natural items as points of comparison, like when she compares her chin to a starfish. This reflects the Taíno culture she belongs to, which is deeply respectful of nature.

Morning Girl has a loving and positive relationship with her parents, which conveys the theme of The Significance of Cultural and Familial Bonds. She enjoys spending time with them and wants to express her gratitude toward her family. She collects beautiful blossoms, weaving them together into necklaces for her parents, showing the love she has for them. However, her relationship with her younger brother, Star Boy, is more strained. At the beginning of the novel, the two don’t get along well. Morning Girl finds him loud and frustrating and feels distant from him due to their differences: while she loves the mornings, he loves the nights. She says, “We only pass by each other as the sun rises or sets. Usually, for me, that’s enough” (2). When her mother announces she is pregnant with a baby sister, Morning Girl wishes her brother didn’t exist, imagining a peaceful life with just her, the new baby, and her parents.

However, as the story progresses, Morning Girl and Star Boy find common ground, and their relationship improves. They both experience sadness when their mother loses the baby. At the end of Chapter 3, Morning Girl watches Star Boy hug their mother and, for the first time, doesn’t feel jealous. This is the beginning of her emotional growth as she learns to empathize with her brother. When he disappears later in the story, she worries for him, reflecting on the silence due to his absence. This shows her growth, as she earlier wished for silence without him. During the feast after the storm, she defends him by mimicking his behavior and throwing herself on the food. This earns her the name The One Who Stands Beside, a personal name between the siblings, representing their bond. In Chapter 9, she picks a shell for his collection, demonstrating her growing love for him.

The Search for Identity is also central to Morning Girl’s journey. She reflects on the transition from childhood to adolescence: “There was a part of me that wished I could […] do whatever I wanted with no aunt’s or uncle’s eyes to correct me. […] though I had not yet become a woman, I was no longer a child” (49). This shows her grappling with her emerging identity, caught between childhood and the growing responsibilities of adulthood. Morning Girl is also curious about her physical appearance, asking her mother: “Is [my face] long and wrinkled, like Grandmother’s, or round as a coconut, like Star Boy’s? Are my eyes wise like yours or ready to laugh like Father’s?” (31). Her curiosity extends into the natural world, as Star Boy notices her looking with interest, curiosity, and amazement during the storm. At the end of the novel, she is kind and welcoming to the Spanish invaders, reflecting her curiosity and open-heartedness, unaware of the destruction they will bring.