64 pages • 2 hours read
Brandon SandersonYumi and the Nightmare Painter
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Yumi’s Clothing
Yumi’s clothing is used to represent her freedom or lack thereof. In the beginning of the book, she wears the ritual tobok robe of the yoki-hijo; it shows her station and conveys the “appropriate” level of modesty. She then tries to recreate this in Painter’s world through compiling a bizarre outfit, made from many different items of clothing. She ends up drawing attention and shows her lack of experience with a life outside of her role. Her growing familiarity with Kilahito life is then symbolized by her and Akane buying new clothes for her, especially the light blue dress that she first picks out. This is one of the first moments in her life when she truly chooses something for herself and allows herself to exist outside of the strict boundaries of the role of yoki-hijo.
In the book’s finale, she uses the shroud to turn her tobok into the blue dress she picked out for herself. She exerts her freedom over the shroud in which she was kept prisoner—she turns the shroud into an item of clothing that first symbolized her liberation. Thus, Yumi’s clothing choices represent that she has learned to live a life outside of her role.
Technology
In Yumi and the Nightmare Painter, Brandon Sanderson uses the motif of technology to explore the theme of The Impact of Culture and Upbringing on Identity. The settings that Yumi and Painter exist in have very different levels of technology, which leads Painter to describe Torio as “not as advanced as [his people] are” (107). Moreover, when Yumi is in Kilahito, she is amazed by all the technology that Painter can access, especially his hion viewer. Their varying degrees of comfort with technology thus initially serve as a barrier to their understanding and shape how they view the other’s home.
As the book progresses, the pair sees the prototype machine in Yumi’s setting and notices the hion lines coming from it. Painter tells Yumi that her people are “on the cusp of the industrial revolution” and that things will soon change (215). She struggles with this concept, not knowing whether to embrace the technology—it might save her from being bound in service as the yoki-hijo, but she is also suspicious of the potential dangers of the machine. Painter is initially more supportive of the machine’s potential, knowing the possibilities that can be gained from technology because of his experiences with it. However, as the novel reveals the destructive consequences of the father machine, it shows the dangerous potential of technology in culture. While technology is useful in Kilahito, the father machine is dangerous and literally sucks souls, warning how technology poses a danger to culture and humanity.
Art
Art is a central motif in Yumi and the Nightmare Painter. It embodies the power of personal expression, human connection, and creativity. Yumi, trained in a traditional and spiritual form of art, carefully creates rock stacks that invite spirits. In contrast, Painter’s urban world views art more practically: He creates nightmare-banishing paintings that protect his city, though his work lacks the emotional and spiritual depth Yumi associates with her creations.
Both Yumi and Painter reckon with the theme of Art as a Reflection of Humanity, with Painter gaining a greater passion for his work and Yumi discovering personal as well as social reasons to apply herself. Through their explorations of each other’s art, they grow to better understand each other and their worlds, showing art’s power to form a bond between people, regardless of its form. The novel broadly defines art as something that is culturally valued for its meaning. It criticizes machine-made work that focuses only on results—as embodied by the father machine’s rock stacks—arguing that this is not art, because it fails to interact with the crucial principles of creativity: passion and intent. Thus, the motif of art is used to show that art is not merely a tool; instead, it contains profound and personal meaning, which can impact the artist and the audience.
Related Titles
By Brandon Sanderson
