Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Wild, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Loss and Grief
Healing vs. Redemption
The Kindness of Strangers
Nature and Humanity
Summary
Analysis
The next morning, Cheryl wakes to rain. It has been pouring all night, and as she breaks camp and continues onward, the rain comes and goes. She can’t stop playing the frightening episode from the night before over and over in her mind, but is soothed by the “green grandiosity” of the lush forest all around her.
Nature has become a balm and a comfort to Cheryl rather than an imposing wilderness. She actually is beginning to prefer the “company” of nature to the company of people.
Themes
The following evening, Cheryl arrives at the shores of the huge Olallie Lake, feeling relieved to be at a campground with other people. Though the Olallie campgrounds advertise themselves as a “resort,” Cheryl quickly realizes how rustic the lodgings are. Cheryl makes camp and cooks dinner in the rain, and as she curls into her sleeping bag after eating, she comforts—and tortures—herself with thoughts of all the goodies awaiting her in her care package which should be arriving tomorrow. She also thinks about how, in about a week’s time, she’ll be done with her hike and living in Portland—waitressing, writing, and going about her life.
Cheryl is decidedly melancholy as she thinks about returning to “real” life. There are certain comforts she misses, as evidenced by her chagrin at the rustic settings of the Olallie Lake “resort,” but the idea of getting off the trail nonetheless fills Cheryl with a new kind of sadness.
Themes
The next morning, Cheryl picks up her box and some letters from the ranger station. As she opens her package, she feels “rich”—she has forty whole dollars at her disposal now due to having mispacked the twenty from her last stop. Cheryl wonders if she should hike onwards or not—there aren’t a lot of amenities at the “resort,” but at the same time, it will be rainy and freezing on the trail. When one of the cashiers at the store offers Cheryl a free dinner with the staff, her decision is made.
Cheryl feels freed by the money awaiting her in the resupply box—and is amazed by how significant a mere twenty dollars has become. Cheryl is learning about a new way of living even this far into her hike.
Themes
Cheryl spends the day bathing and repairing her pump, and as she heads to dinner that evening, she runs into the Three Young Bucks. She is jubilant at the sight of them, and after a delicious family-style meal with the resort staff, she quickly heads back to the campgrounds to catch up with her friends. As she walks past the ranger station, the ranger calls out to her. He tells her that he had surgery on his mouth today but would love to have her by for a drink at his cabin later. Cheryl says she has some friends who have just arrived—and if they can join him, she will too.
Reuniting with old friends fills Cheryl with happiness and comfort. Cheryl has learned to draw strength and joy from other people, and to let them into her life and her experiences without fear, trepidation, or suspicion.
Themes
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Cheryl catches up with the Three Young Bucks and shares with them a piece of cake she pilfered from the meal. They all head to the ranger’s cabin together, grateful to be able to spend some time warm inside rather than in their chilly tents. The ranger introduces himself as Guy and makes strong, potent drinks for the four of them. When one of the Young Bucks refers to the drink as a “suicide”—a kind of drink made with several strong liquors—the ranger, who is loopy from his oral surgery, begins telling macabre stories about the many actual suicides he has encountered in the woods and even on the campgrounds.
Guy is yet another of the deeply kind—but wildly eccentric—strangers Cheryl meets along her journey. He is like Jimmy Carter in that he is so strange as to provide a kind of comic relief—and a reminder, for Cheryl, of all the beautiful, zany strangeness in the world.
Themes
The next morning, Three Young Bucks and Cheryl head to the store for some coffee. The Bucks tell Cheryl they’ve come up with a trail name for her. They dub her “The Queen of the PCT,” because everyone she meets is always doing nice things for her out of the blue. Cheryl considers the nickname, and realizes that in spite of the supposed danger of being “a woman alone,” she has been met at almost every stop along her journey with nothing but kindness and generosity. Right at that moment, the cashier leans across the register and offers to give Cheryl and her friends a cabin for the night for “next to nothing.”
Cheryl was worried about what her trail nickname would be—she was afraid it would reflect her ineptitude or her foolishness. She is surprised and grateful, then, to realize that her nickname is a touching one—one that imbues her with the same “magical” power her mother once had to bring out the best in people and keep them tethered together.
Themes
Cheryl and the Bucks move their things into a rustic cabin. Cheryl heads back to the store for some snacks and runs into her friend Lisa, who greets Cheryl excitedly and explains that she and her boyfriend wanted to drive up and see if Cheryl had reached the resort. That evening, Cheryl, the Bucks, Lisa, and Lisa’s boyfriend Jason all load up into Jason’s truck and head to some hot springs nearby to relax.
Cheryl is surrounded by both new and old friends as Lisa and her boyfriend surprise her and decide to treat her to a relaxing afternoon. When Cheryl left Portland and last saw Lisa, she was a mess—and Lisa seems overjoyed to see Cheryl thriving.
Themes
On the way back from the springs, Cheryl lies on a futon in the truck bed with the Bucks. She feels a deep attraction to Rick, but at the same time, she doesn’t feel the “ache for a companion” that has dogged her the last several years. She doesn’t feel the hole in her heart anymore, and doesn’t want anything but a friend. Nonetheless, Cheryl leans over to Rick and tells him she’s glad she met him—Rick tells her he’s glad to have met her, too: after all, she’s the Queen of the PCT.
Cheryl has learned, over the course of her journey, how to balance her desire for friendship and companionship with her compulsions towards empty sexual congress and desperate grabs at being liked or even loved. Cheryl has healed, grown, and learned—and become a person who brings people together with her goodness rather than one who frets over her inability to maintain fractured, unhealthy relationships.
Themes
