Money. Money. Money.
It’s mentioned 31 times in Wild by Cheryl Strayed.
Money is often on the narrator’s mind. Having money. Not having money. Being rich with $20 in her pocket. Scraping together enough change to buy a Snapple lemonade.
Oh, that Snapple lemonade. I’ve never wanted one in my life until I read this book.
I want one right now, in fact. Really badly.
On page 280, Strayed writes, “I probably wouldn’t have been fearless enough to go on such a trip with so little money if I hadn’t grown up without it. I’d always thought of my family’s economic standing in terms of what I didn’t get: camp and lessons and travel and college tuition and the inexplicable ease that comes when you’ve got access to a credit card that someone else is paying off. But now I could see the line between this and that—between a childhood in which I saw my mother and stepfather forging ahead over and over again with two pennies in their pocket and my own general sense that I could do it too.”
A connection between money and fearlessness. A connection between not having enough and having enough.
The word “enough” is mentioned 54 times. What does money have to do with being enough in this book?
What does money have to do with being lost and being found?
What does not having to focus on money allow in the story?
