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Home in the Wild

In her memoir Wild, Cheryl Strayed is a young woman consumed by grief after her mother’s death and lacks direction in her life which leads her to hike the Pacific Crest Trail. Setting out alone, Strayed’s only companion is a backpack fondly called Monster. As an inexperienced hiker, she packs what she thinks she needs, which astonishes fellow hikers that she encounters because she has too much. Her heavy pack inhibits her ability to move forward, just as she returns again and again to the pain of losing her mother and family and divorcing her husband. Strayed’s grief and desperation overwhelms her, turning her into a monster and in carrying the pack, she is able to accept and move on from the weight of her physical and emotional burdens rather than battle against them.

I chose the word “green” for the keyword as I read through the book Wild written by Cheryl Strayed. Cheryl mentioned “green” several times trough her story from part 1- the story of her past to the very ending part when she had finished her journey on PCT.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word “green” has many origins such as Old Frisian “grene”, Middle Dutch “groene” and Old Saxon “groni” and more. It means the color green, vegetable, Neptune, minerals, grass, the color of signal, fresh, nature, environment, tender, young, safety, unripe, healthy and so on.

“Justice, Justice, Justice,” I remember Julia proclaiming her lines as Shakespeare’s Isabella in Measure for Measure (v.i.29). My mind jumped to these words when I read Antigone’s line in The Burial at Thebes: “Justice, Justice” (Heaney 29). Both Isabella and Antigone are bold female characters that stand up for what they believe in, Isabella for chastity and Antigone for divine law and her brother’s body. Both women have a strong voice despite their inferior social status as women. Like them, I aspire to loudly proclaim, “Justice,” to fight for what is right and to not be afraid of death or fear.

A hue that can be as intense as malachite extracted from the earth, as muted as the flesh of a honeydew, or as alive as the chlorophyll encased in the leaves of a plant, green is a highly emotive and versatile color. Cheryl Strayed’s Wild is full of imagery centered around green, and the plot is inexplicably tied to the symbolic meanings of it.

LOST

October 8^th, 2015

Cherly Strayed lost her mother when she was twenty two, and a part of her has also gone. They endured a violent father together at one time, and they went to the same university. Cherly was inquisitive about everything of her mother, and she knew all of the mother’s life before she died. For her, the mother was more than a mother. She lost the center of her life.

So, I understood that she was eager to compensate the lack, and drugs and sex were the means she needed at that time though she knew these things actually solve nothing. Taking the hike of the Pacific Crest Trail was her real step to heal herself and face the fact.

       As we read through Fraden’s investigation of Jones’ techniques in facilitating the Medea Project, it is hard for us to miss a salient characteristic of Jones of being mighty, tough and directive. There is even a whole section discussing her rants toward the women in their project. While some people may doubtfully question her toughness toward those women who are already in a disadvantaged position, I genuinely want to praise the courage and effectiveness of her style. Principles, disciplines and directions are essential in the formation of a dialogue. Principles can help equalizing people’s opportunities of voicing themselves. It is usually the truth that, breaking into a speech or conversation of someone else’s is one of the hardest thing to do.

Grilling Steak: An Analogy

            When Cheryl Strayed first started her journey on the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) during the summer of 1995 she was emotionally and physically unprepared for the challenges ahead. She was broken. She was unable to move on from the past, which consumed her. She was raw.