43 pages • 1 hour read
Colin MeloyWildwood
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2011A 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
The Impassable Wildernes
The “Impassable Wilderness” is a term used by Outsiders living in Portland to describe the mysterious, magical realm just beyond the town’s borders. The region is known to its inhabitants simply as the “Wood.” In addition to its magical properties, the Wood symbolizes a harmonious interrelationship among all living things.
Animals, birds, and humans are able to converse with one another, dissolving the gap that separates species in the world of Outsiders. Plants, too, are able to communicate their wishes. Alexandra can speak to the invasive ivy and hear its replies. Iphigenia listens to the advice of the Council Tree and is able to get the blackberry brambles to move out of the army’s way.
Prue experiences a shift in her Outsider perspective when she learns that everything in the world is capable of communication. A North Wood resident tells her how the Mystics use this power: “Calming your mind in total silence. Understanding your connection to the natural world, and all that. You do that, and you can hear it. All the talking” (376).
Prue possesses this nascent skill herself. She demonstrates her own ability to communicate with plants when she asks the trees to lift Mac out of Alexandra’s reach. The novel seems to imply that the real magic of the Wood is not the Periphery Bind spell that protects it from the Outside, it is the connection among all life that Outsiders have forgotten how to invoke.
At the end of the novel, the fact that Iphigenia asks the vines to part, and Prue begs the trees to help, gives the wilderness a voice and power in their own welfare and the welfare of those in their care. Much like Prue develops agency over the course of the novel, so does nature.
Birds
Birds are a common motif throughout Wildwood. Early in the book, the reader learns that Prue likes to sketch images of birds. When she goes to the library to return the family’s books, she hesitates and keeps her long-overdue copy of The Sibley Guide to Birds because she can’t yet bear to part with it. Moments later, she sees her baby brother being airlifted into the Impassable Wilderness by a murder of crows.
Once inside the Wood herself, Prue forms alliances with a number of different birds. Owl Rex offers her advice about the dangerous political climate in South Wood and hides her from the secret police. A sparrow named Enver acts as a lookout to guide her safely to Richard’s home. Later, Prue is flown on the back of the eagle General to get her to North Wood though he sacrifices his own life in the effort.
When it appears that the Wood allies are about to lose their war to the coyotes, a flock of eagles descends to help defeat Alexandra’s army. Alexandra herself is first seen with eagle’s feathers woven into her tresses. When she appears on the ghost bridge to meet Prue’s parents, she wears a feathered headdress, as does her coyote Commandant.
At the end of the story, when crisis has been averted. Prue is seen peacefully sketching a portrait of her sparrow friend, Enver.
Mac’s Wagon
Mac’s Radio Flyer wagon crops up frequently in the story as a symbol of Prue’s mission. The little red wagon is associated with the baby, as well as with his sister’s determination to bring him back to Portland unharmed. In the initial pages of Wildwood, we see Prue loading Mac into the wagon for a day of errands and fun. When she ducks into the library to return books, she leaves her brother sitting in the wagon unguarded for a few moments. This brief lapse in Prue’s vigilance is all the crows need to carry Mac away.
When Prue heads toward the Impassable Wilderness, she hitches the wagon to the back of her bicycle, intending to transport Mac back home with it. After her bike gets damaged at the Railroad Bridge, she leaves both the bicycle and the wagon by the side of the tracks and continues on foot into the Wood.
Her abandonment of the wagon indicates a growing fear that she might not be able to find her brother after all. After Alexandra persuades her to leave Wildwood, Prue drags both the damaged bike and wagon back home, admitting defeat. The wagon represents Prue’s responsibility toward others and her acceptance or abandonment of it. At this point in the novel, she must come to accept her mistake in leaving her responsibility unattended.
Her father’s confession about her parents’ encounter with the Governess reignites her conviction that someone should try to recover Mac. Nothing symbolizes her commitment more than the moment when she repairs her bicycle and reattaches the wagon before crossing the ghost bridge. She gives herself agency to fully accept responsibility for others.
