The moon symbolizes the consistency of the external world. It serves as a fixture to alert Hannah that she is away from her home of New Rochelle and in a very different world, time, and place, and yet, the moon is the same. On page 13, Hannah stares out the window at the moon because she finds the Passover Seder tedious and wants a distraction. The moon is mentioned twice on page 13. It is first described as a full moon that “was squeezed between two of the project's apartment buildings.” On the same page, we are told that Hannah stared at the moon and we realize that she is not interested in her grandfather's stories at the moment.

Then, just a few pages later, the moon is mentioned again on page 20, but Hannah is no longer staring at a skyline that includes apartment buildings. In this case, the moon "hung ripely between two heavy gray clouds" and was perched above a greening field and a lowering sky. The moon is the same moon, but everything else is different.

The moon is also a symbol of the external world that remains the same, regardless of where a person is. It also symbolizes that Hannah is the same in both places, even though she is a young girl transplanted from modern day New York to a European village during World War II.