49 pages • 1 hour read
Shea ErnshawA History Of Wild Places
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2021A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Dirt/Earth
Dirt is a symbol throughout the novel that represents a connection to earth, what is buried when we disconnect from society, and life and death. In the delivery of Colette’s baby, Bee thinks about how “Babies always remind me of something forged up from the garden, the mothers like the tender soil” (108). Ernshaw uses dirt to symbolize human origins. Both Calla and Bee interact with dirt on an intimate and frequent basis: Calla with her gardening, and Bee after she retreats into the woods and spends time sleeping on the ground. Calla finds both the charm and the book in the dirt, and the process of unearthing contributes to its function in symbolizing buried memories. The fact that she digs up the clues to her identity alludes to a metaphorical and literal process of self-discovery.
Dirt’s role in the novel is also particularly significant in the ritual of burying Ash and Turk alive. The purpose is described as the hope that the “mineral-rich soil” will “leech the illness from the bones, draw it clean out, like a sponge to water” (199). While dirt is ostensibly healing in this description, the ritual is false. The role of earth in the ritual is therefore a suffocating force when Ash experiences “the weight of too much soil bearing down on his chest” (205). Ernshaw thus emphasizes the role of soil as a return to the earth. This is mirrored in the incident wherein a child died trying to mimic Eloise’s actions in Maggie’s books. Where Colette’s pregnancy and the garden connected dirt to birth, these instances connect it to death, creating a motif about the circle of life.
Trees
Trees are prevalent in the novel, largely because of its setting in the woods. However, trees come to symbolize boundaries, both physical ones and those created by fear. The community views trees as the literal border between their safe community and the outside world, where the “rot” can kill them.
They additionally function as a figurative boundary because they represent the disease that keeps the community members in Pastoral. While the “rot” is not real, it has the real effect of keeping members of the community from attempting to leave. Bee describes the rot’s origin in the trees in a characteristically vivid manner: “It begins in the trees, turning the leaves spotted and decayed, then the bark begins to peel away, revealing pale white centers, sap weeping down their sides: a last cry for help, wounds that will never heal” (73). Conceptually, a disease transmissible from trees to humans indicates the closeness with nature that characterizes Pastoral, but it is a closeness that feels suffocating due to what the trees symbolize. In this passage, Bee anthropomorphizes the trees, implicitly paralleling their emotional struggle with that of the community. Theo and Calla are shown to be running from the troubles of their past, seeking asylum in Pastoral, so the “wounds” that live in the trees represent their prior traumas and internal conflicts. These troubles are not gone but waiting just beyond the border. Ernshaw thus creates a vivid portrayal of trees that symbolize boundaries of fear.
Books
Books are a prevalent motif throughout A History of Wild Places. Most significantly, Maggie St. James is a children’s author, and the novel includes interspersed excerpts from her books. Because the books are dark children’s stories, Ernshaw connects the motif of books with the novel’s theme of The Power and Darkness of Fairy Tales. Books are also clues as Theo and Calla attempt to learn the truth about Pastoral and their own identities. Calla finds one of the Eloise and the Foxtail books buried in the garden with an inscription saying, “Remember Maggie.” The charm necklace of books that belonged to Maggie is Travis’s initial clue and the object that helps him locate her. Finally, books instigate Bee’s revelation about the offenses Levi has perpetrated against the community. When she sees the hypnosis book, she remembers his previous obsession with it and how he hypnotized her and other members of the community. The motif of books therefore relates to the idea of discovery.
The novel also includes numerous allusions to real books. Ernshaw refers to Lewis Carrol, J. D. Salinger, and Jack Kerouac. By placing intertextuality alongside the focus on books within the novel, Ernshaw emphasizes the novel’s metafictional component and focus on the creation of a story. The layered motif of books emphasizes the power of fiction, both positive and negative.
