The House with Chicken Legs

“But the real, live, living people, they all stay in the town and villages far below us. Maybe if it was summer, a few of them would wander up here, to picnic and look at the view. They might smile and say hello. Someone my own age might visit—maybe a whole group of children. They might stop near the stream and splash in the water to cool off. Perhaps they would invite me to join them.”

Marinka’s musings on her life in the chicken-leg house versus the lives of the living villagers introduce the novel’s theme of the Search for Friendship and Belonging. Marinka has a home in the traveling Yaga house with her grandmother but is reluctant to accept it. She wishes she did not have to be surrounded by the dead and thus sees the world beyond the house as idyllic. As long as she lives in conflict with her home and circumstances, she will feel unsettled wherever she goes and in every relationship.

“I don’t want to be a Guardian. Being Guardian means being responsible for The Gate and all the guiding of the dead, forever. And while guiding makes Baba happy, seeing the dead drift away every night makes me feel even more alone. If only I was destined to be something else. Something that involved living people.”

Marinka’s internal monologue in this passage establishes the novel’s theme of the Tension Between Tradition and Self-Determination. Marinka loves and respects Baba but has no interest in assuming her Guardian role or communing with the dead for the rest of her life. Destiny is a trap to Marinka, and she vows to do everything in her power to stave off this fate. She tries defying the traditions she has been raised with because they feel antithetical to freedom and independence.