The Music Of Dolphins Character Analysis

The two novels, The Music of Dolphins and Out of the Dust, both written by Karen Hesse, demonstration how two young girls – who are going through traumatic times in their lives – use music to express their thoughts and feelings. Mila, from The Music of Dolphins, is torn away from the only family she remembers, her dolphin family, and sent to human civilization to learn proper customs; the drastic difference between her wild life and civilized life is difficult to deal with, however, singing and music from her recorder connect her back the music of her dolphin family. Billie Jo, from Out of the Dust, is living in the Great Depression and the Oklahoma Dust Bowl, and using her musical ability on the piano, she deals with her family’s declining …show more content…
Music becomes the only common element between both worlds, and it helps her understand the complexity of her human life. In her dolphin life, music was their main source of communication, “[she] cannot hear the hole sound, though it sings through [her]” (Hesse, The Music of Dolphins 89). Mila is described as “prelingual” by Hesse in an interview, saying “she didn’t have human language with which to convey human emotions, her thoughts, her needs, her desires, her fears” (Hendershot and Peck). Mila’s lack of language is prevalent in the first thirteen chapters, but once she is given music she uses more than human language to express her emotions. After her introduction to music in her human life, Mila uses simple metaphors to connect human music in relation to her dolphin experiences. For example, after she hearing Mozart for the first time she describes “the music of Mozart… great like the sea” (Hesse, The Music of Dolphins 60); after receiving her recorder, she describes it as “so pretty […] like the sea when it is white with form” (Hesse, The Music of Dolphins 66). Mila also associates playing the seven notes “G-A-B-C-D-F-E” with “small waves on a calm day” that “go up a little, down a little” (Hesse, The Music of Dolphins 82). Mila’s use metaphor between her music …show more content…
In her dolphin life, Mila is free to explore with her playful and caring dolphin family. The authors of “Talking About Books: Karen Hesse” claim that the “the dolphins are a true family caring for one another unselfishly and appreciating one another individuality” (Beck et la, 267). This is crucial in understanding that Mila is lonely in her human life, and she has no way to communicate that but through her music, the one thing that she can connect to both worlds. Mila is taught a lullaby before she is given the recorder, about a baby alone in a meadow, which she feels bad for, she says “It makes me sad” (Hesse, The Music of Dolphins 63). But after Mila has the recorder, she finds herself longing for the company of her dolphin family, and associating herself with the baby, she says “I listen to the music of the water. I am alone… like the baby in the lullaby with the birds and the butterflies around him” and so she sings a song, “a little… Mila song… a song of alone” (Hesse, The Music of Dolphins 67). Here, Mila uses the music of her human life, a sad lullaby to connect to the loneliness of her human life. She is even able to communicate the fact that the baby is left in a meadow, alone where a baby should not be, as she is left on land, alone where she should not be. Using music, Mila can understand and communicate more complex ideas even when she