The Mysteries of Life and Death Theme Analysis

The Wanderer raises a lot of questions about the purpose and meaning of life, as well as the relationship between life and death—what death is really like, and whether it truly provides a path out of life.

Perhaps one of the most profound moments of the book is when Sophie and Cody discuss life and death after “The Wave” almost kills them. Sophie and Cody wonder if whether, when you almost die, you actually do die—but you just automatically are reborn and continue living your life as if nothing happened. Further, they wonder if people live their lives on millions of different “planes”—if when one life dies, another life branches out, as if from a central life-trunk (owned by one person) with millions upon millions of different life-branches—like millions of different lives of the same individual. This scene between Sophie and Cody exposes the psychological intensity behind their trip across the ocean. The trip from Connecticut to England is not merely a geographical journey; it’s a mental one, as well. Faced with death, and with a wide-open sea that seems totally detached from ordinary, everyday life, Sophie and Cody (and the rest of the crew) are almost forced to ask these big questions about the nature of existence.

In one of his diary entries, Cody raises an interesting question about human identity and the mystery of life: why don’t we notice how we change through time, but rather have these random moments when we suddenly realize that we’re entirely different than we were before? In other words, if we’re always changing, what about us stays the same, and why don’t we notice ourselves changing? This question highlights the way in which time on the ocean has changed Cody’s thinking: taken out of his ordinary life and thrust onto the seas, Cody starts wondering about the nature of existence—things that we take for granted in our daily lives.

Another instance where the characters contemplate the mysteries of existence occurs after the crew has departed from Nova Scotia, when Sophie is partnered with Dock on night-watch. Dock asks Sophie “What’s it all about?” Sophie wonders what Dock is talking about, and he replies that, by “what,” he means “life” itself. It seems as if Dock is called by something that he cannot give words to—he can only use the word “it” at first to describe what’s calling him, then chooses the word “life.” It’s as if Dock’s mind has been brought to a basic mystery that is at the heart of The Wanderer, a mystery that makes the book into not a geographical journey, but a psychological one as well.

While The Wanderer never reaches any solid conclusions that give answers to the mysteries of life and death, working rather to explore a moment in its characters’ lives where they are forced to confront them, the book nonetheless shows how being confronted with such mysteries—encountered, in the book, during a time of great danger—can bring people together. The crew becomes closer, and its members begin to appreciate one another more, at the advent of their traumatic encounter with the nearly fatal wave. Further, the book emphasizes the importance of owning one’s own story, and of discovering it amidst the mysteries that life throws at us. Sophie’s journey across the ocean is a journey into an immense mystery, yet she comes out of it with a fuller knowledge of herself and her history.