October 9, 2015 - 16:58
We were asked to choose a keyword as a lens through which to analyze Cheryl Strayed’s memoir Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail. The word alone stuck out to me as while I was reading the memoir because I felt like it was deeply connected with her emotions and motivations. The etymological definition of alone is “unaccompanied, all by ones self” stemming from the words “all, wholly” and “one.” In Strayed’s memoir, the meaning behind “alone” is a catalyst for her decisions to hike the Pacific Crest Trail, and her decisions during her journey on the trail. Strayed believes that she is alone, and thus undertakes this grueling journey on the Pacific Crest Trail partially because she feels she has nothing left to lose. She says “ I’d set out to hike the trail so that I could reflect upon my life, to think about everything that had broken me, and make myself whole again.”(84) Having lost her mother and subsequently the rest of her family, she truly feels alone.
Not only does she feel alone physically, she also feels alone emotionally. Strayed’s flashbacks to her childhood indicate that her aloneness did not begin when her mother passed away. In response to details about her childhood, a therapist asks her: “Imagine your life if you’d had a father who loved you as a father should.” (133) Not having a consistent and positive father figure in her life, coupled with having a mother who was not always able to take care of her children to the extent that they needed it made her feel alone as a child. This lack of a support system growing up impacts her future relations, especially after the death of her mother. Instead of the loss bringing the family closer together, it only creates more distance between them, making Strayed feel alone and abandoned once again. Not having an adequate support system is partially what drove Strayed to walk the trail, perhaps in efforts to learn how to support herself and know that she was capable of accomplishing her goals without anyone’s help.
Despite wanting to hike the trail alone, Strayed often seeks out the company of others, or is excited about meeting people on the trail. Yet she still breaks away from the different groups at times saying she wants to be alone, and at others trying to reach a location before another group. At different points in the memoir, aloneness is coupled with a variety of emotions. At times Strayed seems to be devastated by her state of aloneness. During other times she chooses to be alone, or relishes the time away from others.
There is a distinct tension between her wanting to be alone and wanting human connection. When not in the presence of other people, Strayed feels completely alone. She acknowledges her connection to the surroundings saying: “the piñon pines and monkey flowers I passed that morning, the shallow streams I crossed, felt familiar and known, though I’d never passed them or crossed them before.” (119) This revelation is immediately preceded by Strayed leaving Doug and Tom so that she could hike on her own. Despite having a sort of “strange intimacy” (119) with the trail, she still feels alone in the presence of the natural world around her.
In an essay we read called “Ravens at Play” the authors examine the human connection to the outside world and how we are always somehow connected to the environment around us. Like how in the essay, the authors were conflicted over the implications of feeding a coyote, it is is evident that our actions influence the natural environment around us. Strayed seems to see being alone as meaning only in terms of human interaction and not nature.
Strayed’s meaning of alone appears to be limited to human connection because of the way it forms a distinction between physical and emotional aloneness.She seems to be more concerned with the emotional aspect of being alone. It is clear that Strayed is not physically alone on the trail because people are constantly helping her. A hiker helps her lighten her backpack, others feed her or give her rides, and her friends send her letters and packages. Without the vital help provided by these individuals, she would not have been able to complete her goal.
Throughout the memoir Strayed shifts back and forth between wanting human connection and wanting to be alone. The tension remains because her desire to complete the challenge of hiking the Pacific Crest Trail on her own drives her continued return to aloneness. Her focus on being alone makes her place less emphasis on the role of others in helping her achieve her goals. She also does not regard her natural surroundings as making her not alone, despite the many ways she is inextricably connected to it. However, the point is not that she was never truly alone, it is the journey through her aloneness that matters most. Part of the issue with Strayed’s support system is that it lacked the support she needed. Hiking the trail was a means by which she was able to learn how to support herself. While Strayed was never physically alone on the trail, the changes she experiences with emotional aloneness is most significant.
Works Cited 1. Strayed, Cheryl. Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2012. Print.