She Kills Monsters

Agnes’s family died in a tragic car accident when their vehicle crashed into a tree. In the shadow play that dramatizes the tragedy, the stage direction describes how “the tree transforms into a dragon and flies away with the broken vehicle” (9). The tree, firmly rooted in place, represents Agnes’s unchanging life, and its transformation into a dragon foreshadows the inspirational fantasy world of Tilly’s module and symbolizes Agnes’s personal journey to see beyond the strictures of social conformity.

Year after year, Agnes grows up in the most typical manner where she looks and acts like every other regular teenager in her small town. Like a tree that stays permanently in place, Agnes has little experience beyond the borders of her home. The narrator describes how “as Agnes grew and grew, she became more and more engrossed with transcending her seemingly permanent state of averageness” (8). The older she grows, the deeper the roots settle her in one place and one mindset, and the more restless she feels.

When the tree transforms into a dragon that flies away, the change symbolizes Agnes’s willingness to leave the confines of her stationary life to explore the larger world around her.