Man vs. nature. Man vs. man. Man vs. himself.
Cheryl Strayed vs. ???
In Wild by Cheryl Strayed what was the conflict that kept the story moving forward—that kept the reader reading?
What vs. what?
Along the journey the narrator encounters nature over and over. She encounters actual nature: a fox, a bull, a bear, frogs, and many others.
She has a unforgettable encounter with a horse.
And she also encounters her own nature.
Nature is a major player in Wild. Nature is big and alive and teeming with possibility, danger, and despair in this book.
Where does the depiction of nature leave you as a reader of this story?
What role does nature play in both the book and the ongoing dramatic tension of the story?
Was your attitude towards nature changed by reading this book?
Say anything you want.
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Oooo, Ooo (raises hand) I know this one, pick me!
Man vs. Himself. Yes there are Cheryl struggles with the harsh natural environment, but the overriding struggle is Cheryl vs. Herself. She has to keep moving despite physical pain, overcome her fear of being vulnerable and alone in the wilderness, cope with physical and spiritual hunger.
The external forces of nature keep the tension high, in the same way an antagonist would in a work of fiction, but the key struggle is internal. Achieving a physical feat like hiking across two states is not primarily an athletic endeavor. Just like with athletes, the difference between success and failure is mental.
I loved this book and Cheryl. nature was just another part of her. nature heals all if allowed.
In reflecting on a probable meeting with two hikers who started the PCT hike a short time before she did, the narrator ruminates on how her journey, the hardest thing she’d ever done–compares to theirs. Then she stops in her tracks to amend the thought. “Watching my mother die was the hardest thing I’d ever done.” Leaving her marriage was also hard. “Hiking the PCT was hard in a different way. In a way that made the other hardest things the tiniest bit less hard.”
Strayed describes what led her to the decision to take on the PCT. It included the choice of her last name: Strayed–“to wander from the proper path, to deviate from the direct course, to be lost, to become wild, to be without a mother or father, to be without a home, to move about aimlessly in search of something, to diverge or digress.”
For me her conflict is internal. Her inclination to wander from the proper path was set for her by her mother’s life and death and by her father who abandoned the family. But this mindless wandering the narrator embarked on after her mother’s death led her to spiral downward with little hope of positive change until she began hiking the PCT. Pitting her nature to stray against actual live-or-die-nature forced her to acknowledge, plan for, acquire, and carry every drop of water her body required, every bite of food, required that she endure excessive heat and cold her, and to suffer the weight of the emotional and tangible baggage she carried.
Here, on the PCT her despair shifts, and she sees she can survive and thrive.
I admire Strayed’s perseverance through her self-imposed trial. I believe most people in her circumstances would have given up early on, but she was driven to heal herself and her journey is beautiful and moving.
My relationship to nature–I’ve lived in a tent South Sudan for weeks at a time, enduring heat, torrential rains, flood waters, bats, insects, frogs, and threats of tribal violence, but I’ve been generally pampered–my beans and rice have been cooked for me, I had ample clean water to drink, malaria pills, a latrine, and a cold shower. But I kept all my toenails and never suffered a blister.
Well said.
Cheryl vs. her goal. That’s all I can come up with. When she tried to go through all that snow and ice, and then realized she couldn’t do it, she felt like she’d truly tried but made the decision to go to plan B.
Others didn’t attempt it. She was definitely focused on her goal.
I can’t remember if Portland, Oregon was her original goal. If it wasn’t I know she had achieved her goal of finding who she use to be. Finding herself – her bonus goal!!