51 pages • 1 hour read
Lauren GroffThe Vaster Wilds
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023A 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
Names
Content Warning: This section of the guide references extreme classism, suicidal ideation and the violent nature of colonialism and imperialism.
The naming of things, people, and places is a recurring motif throughout the story. Although she is the protagonist, the girl does not truly have a name, and this notable lack symbolizes the dehumanization she has endured in her role as a servant in English society. She has been given rudimentary names throughout her life, but each one was an insult in some way, designed to reinforce her lowly place as a lesser member of society. Perhaps the most striking example of this pattern is when her mistress callously gives her the name of her dead monkey, for just as the epithet “Zed” implies something that is utterly “last” in anyone’s thoughts, it also emphasizes the girl’s enforced status as something humanlike but inherently less than human. This dynamic illustrates the nature of the cruel power that has stunted her spiritual growth throughout her life, and it also gives further insight into the girl’s struggle with self-actualization during her solo journey. Her lack of a dignified name that she can accept or take pride in also shows her growing distance from the indifferent society into which she was born.
Within the larger context of the novel, names also represent colonial power and colonial ignorance. While traveling, the girl begins to make up her own names for trees and plants, and in doing so, she sees how the world changes once things are named, become more familiar and comprehensible. The inhabitants of the land she travels through know each of the different plants and animals and are far more comfortable in the world than she is. Her naming of things also leads her to recognize the power that naming gives someone. She realizes why her countrymen are so eager to name things in the new land, and she connects this culture-wide habit to the way in which people have given her names to assert their control over her. It is significant that she dies without renaming herself, for this decision shows how profoundly her experience in the woods has freed her from the limits of colonial society.
Water
Water symbolizes development and forward motion within The Vaster Wilds, and this pattern is apparent from a very early point in the girl’s life. Prior to the hurricane, the girl delights in her first sea journey. She does not get seasick like the other passengers and uses the time she has to take in the view of the open ocean and the beauty of the sea and the sky. She is so happy upon the water that her mistress even says that it is possible her father was a sailor. Though obviously not a real answer to the mystery of the girl’s origins, this idea of her father being a sailor is a move forward in the girl’s understanding of herself, and it is significant that her relationship with the glassblower also is enabled by the water journey.
Likewise, the rivers that the girl encounters on her journey through the woods also symbolize her internal development. The first river is a test; the girl trusts it to support her because of the bounty it has offered her in the form of the frozen fish. The river also lets her cross and prevents others from the fort from following her. Similarly, the river she travels along for the majority of the story also symbolizes her growing development. The sights she witnesses greatly change and challenge her worldview, and the bear that stares in wonder at the waterfall becomes the impetus for the girl to completely reconsider her theological understanding of the universe. She even dies next to the river, symbolizing her movement forward into a new stage of existence.
Monsters
The image of monsters becomes a recurring motif, whether real or imaginary. Initially, the girl has night terrors in which monsters plague her, and she perceives various beings in the woods as monsters. Primarily born of her fear, her dreams of monsters are plagued with beasts made of bone and darkness to torment her. Her waking thoughts are further filled with monsters, for she is certain, particularly during her first night in the woods, that there are beings hiding behind trees and waiting to attack her.
These fictional monsters provide a sharp contrast with the real monsters the girl encounters—men. The men of the fort are terrifying to her, and their desire for violence and control motivate her to escape, for she is well aware that the indifference of colonial society will allow them to hurt her with impunity. The Indigenous men she encounters are scary to her for the opposite reason, for she doesn’t know what they might do to her. This is also a manifestation of her fear of the unknown. Though she has never experienced violence at the hands of an Indigenous person, the nature of colonialism requires that the “other,” those who are Indigenous to the land and inhabit the wilds beyond the fort, must be designated as “monsters.” Ironically, the closest the girl comes to a real monster is her encounter with the Jesuit priest: a real man and one from Europe, whose ingrained violence arises from his skewed understanding of society. The colonial distinction between what and who is a monster blurs further as the girl gains more experience in the wild.
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By Lauren Groff
