The Astronaut Symbol Analysis

The astronaut, a tiny figure that Maddy hides in every architectural model she creates, is a symbol for Maddy herself, and specifically how limited her interactions with the rest of the world are at the beginning of the novel. This is best encapsulated when her architecture tutor, Mr. Waterman, finds the astronaut in a model restaurant and asks how the astronaut is supposed to eat through his helmet—and Maddy had never considered that the astronaut could, or might want to, actually eat the food. Maddy, as a person with SCID, must engage with the world around her through books and movies and from the safety of her sanitized house. This allows her to see life on the outside without actually interacting with it, much as the astronaut can look at his model food and the rest of the model but cannot actually experience any of it through his space suit.