Wild: From Lost To Found On The Pacific Crest Trail, By Chery Strayed

Do people look back at the past to hurt themselves or to become a better person? With my very first relationship, we both had a rocky start and bad things happened that we both regret. As time passed by, my significant other chose to learn from the past and wanted to have a better relationship, but I sometimes faltered and looked back at the past that had us going in reverse rather than forward in the relationship. As I learned to accept the past and learn from it, I eventually used the past as a lesson, and I chose to have a stronger and better relationship that is still going on. My story is parallel to that of Cheryl Strayed as she constantly looked back at the past while on her hike on the Pacific Crest Trail that led down a destructive

Strayed uses a unique writing style and figurative language in Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail to give a picture of how one can use the past to create a healthy and bright present. Throughout the entire memoir, Strayed uses flashbacks and flash-forwards during her hike. Strayed starts off with her hike when she says, “My solo three-month hike on the Pacific Crest Trail had many beginnings” (1), and then she switches to “I accompanied my mother and stepfather, Eddie, from floor to floor of the Mayo Clinic” (10). With the constant back and forth where chronological time has no place, Strayed uses this repeatedly to clearly show her improvement by using the past as lessons to learn from. Strayed relies on her rare style to show that the past does help forge a better present. Likewise, the tone of the beginning and the end begin to shift. At the beginning, Strayed says that “I’ve never gone backpacking” (32), but at the end, she says, “Thank you. Not just for the long walk, but for everything I could feel finally gathered up inside

First of all, even if the past seems too horrible to think of, it needs to be remembered in order to make a better present. When one makes a mistake the first time, they learn and correct that mistake when put in the same situation. This idea presents itself quite clearly when Strayed says, “That I would get an abortion was a fact so apparent it seemed silly to discuss anything else” (56). With a tragic first pregnancy and mistake comes the blessing of a committed and ready person who conceives two children with a good husband in the future. Despite some mistakes being more horrible than others, the mind works its magic by learning how to improve oneself through those mistakes in order to be better not just for oneself but for others, as well. The past leads to acceptance with the hope that a similar encounter and situation brings about a more positive outcome. In addition to that, Strayed uses other characters to show that they can use the past to forge a better future. With this, everything goes back to the death of Strayed’s mother, which affected Eddie greatly when Strayed says, “He acted like he was our friend instead of our father. Quickly, he fell in love with another woman and soon she moved into our house with her children” (153). This presents itself as a great example of reaching a