I Am Still Alive

“If you can’t be strong, you have to be smart. And smart is better than strong, out here.”

By Overcoming Disability Through Ingenuity, Jess is able to survive. She relies on her intelligence rather than her physical strength because it is her greatest asset, and she uses clever tools and contraptions to overcome situations that would otherwise demand physical strength. Jess also relies on advice from people who are not present, and these words in her memory bring her comfort and much-needed information.

“None of it would have happened if he hadn’t dragged me out here and I wish I had never seen him again and I wish here was here now.”

This passage encapsulates Jess’s conflicting emotions about her father and her regret over the relationship that they never managed to have. She knows that it is because of him that she is stranded in the wilderness, but she also loves her father unconditionally and wants him by her side. At the same time, Jess knows that his knowledge would be useful in such a crisis.

“I jumped at every blow. Blood oozed from the fish’s gills. They flared once, twice, slowly as the fish gasped and died. My stomach churned. I’d never killed anything. Or seen anything killed.”

Graphic descriptions of Jess’s experiences in the wilderness serve to demonstrate the brutal reality of doing whatever it takes to survive. Jess’s transformation as a person is most evident in her visceral reaction to killing, because she initially finds it to be a horrible experience. However, by the time she leaves the wilderness, she no longer feels anything but gratitude when she kills an animal, knowing that its death will enable her to live another day.

“I will never understand why you left.

I will never understand why you left me.

I will never understand why you left me here.

I will never

I don’t.”

In her diary, Jess writes a free verse poem about her feelings toward her father and his abandonment of the family when she was younger. The repetition emphasizes her confusion, and the slow addition and removal of phrases gives the poem its form.

“The indifference of the wild is terrifying—I want to be remembered, to leave a mark. And it is freeing, knowing that the forest does not care, does not judge. My failure will go unmarked—no mourning, no mockery. For the first time in my life, there are no expectations of me at all. The only thing that matters is what I want, what I can do.”

When Jess comes to terms with the fact that she is alone and that the only person who is concerned for her survival is herself, she comes to see the wilderness not as an enemy, but as a neutral and challenging force to which she must adapt. She finds the lack of obligation to anyone but herself freeing, and she gradually becomes fully immersed in the wilderness.

“I was right. I don’t really care anymore. It’s really, really hard to kill a thing quickly enough that you don’t have to see it suffer. And that bothers me. But not the killing itself. Not anymore.”

Jess becomes braver and mentally stronger the more time she spends struggling for survival, but she does not lose her sense of empathy for other living things. When she first arrived, her father predicted that a sense of gratitude would replace her disgust over hunting, and this passage proves that Jess has this precise experience.

“A rabbit crouched up ahead, Hallmark-gorgeous and haloed in golden light. Dad start to lift his rifle to turn Hallmark into horror show, but then he lowered it, pointed at my bow instead.”

Alliteration is used here to add a poetic effect to the imagery of the rabbit glimmering in the sunlight. The beautiful scene is immediately contrasted with the brutal violence that Jess must embrace by shooting and killing it. The moment marks Jess’s initiation into the world of wilderness survival.

“But I can’t keep avoiding the one thing that made me start writing. It’s time, now, to tell you about the moment when before became after. When everything fell apart.”

By steeling herself to describe her father’s death, Jess imbues her narrative with the horror and regret that she feels for recent events. However, she delays relating the nature of her father’s death until she has written long enough to feel comfortable revealing it. By processing her experiences through writing, Jess understands more about herself and can examine her past without falling into a paralysis of grief.

“My life has become a list of things that almost killed me.”

Jess feels as though she is defined by near-death experiences. She nearly died when her mother died, and when her father is shot, and she has nearly died many times since just trying to survive on her own. These experiences lead Jess to become braver and more hardened with each passing day, foreshadowing her eventual determination to act against the men who killed her father.

“It doesn’t seem like it should be that hard to gather wood, but I’m slow and fire is greedy.”

Jess regularly personifies the wilderness or portions of it. Here, she personifies the fire as she describes the way that it consumes wood. Observing the voraciousness of the flames, Jess quickly comes to understand the need for building up a large stockpile of firewood. This scene demonstrates one of many in which she must come to terms with the endless hard labor required to guarantee her own survival.

“No more fish.

No more bullets.

I am so hungry.”

Jess experiences moments of despair when she is starving and not successful at finding food. She looks ahead and sees the winter approaching and fears that she may not last through it. Jess’s thoughts become simple and straightforward when she is at her hungriest, reflecting her exhaustion.

“To shut out the sound of the rain, I listen to my breathing instead. To the beat of my heart. Every beat is a promise. I’m not dead yet. I’m not dead yet. I’m not dead yet.”

Jess illustrates the beating of her heart and the words she repeats to herself through this repetitive statement. While a storm rages around her, Jess calms herself by focusing only on the fact that she is still alive, which means she still has a chance.

“It’s like shrugging off a heavy backpack. It seems like giving up hope should mean despairing, but I feel light.”

By using Grief and Fear as Motivational Tools, Jess manages to overcome her many traumas and survive despite the losses and dangers she faces. After digging up her father’s grave to find vital supplies, something changes in Jess, and she lets go of the idea of escaping. Instead, she focuses on taking revenge and surviving long enough to complete what she views as the story of her experience.

“If the forest is going to kill me, it’s going to have to do it honestly.”

Jess sees the wilderness as an adversary that she does not necessarily have to defeat, but that she must learn, understand, and use to her advantage. She refuses to succumb to the elements of nature, no matter how hard it tries to destroy her odds of survival. Jess’s view of the forest is in a sense a form of personification, because she sees it as a unified entity.

“I resent every extra step around the end of the tree (ninety-nine, one hundred, one), but I’m too tired to hold on to the emotion. Each step erases the one before it.”

Jess’s perseverance is one of her greatest strengths, and it is particularly evident whenever she endures immense physical pain in order to accomplish a goal. Jess is repeatedly injured during her time alone, and she was already injured when she first arrived; despite this critical difficulty, she continues on and shuts out any negativity that would hamper her from achieving her goals.

“He comes plodding back and thrusts [the stick] into my hand as if to say, Here. Hold on to it this time. Sheesh.”

Jess and Bo have a deep bond and a special friendship that Jess relies on during the isolating months she is alone in the wilderness. She interprets and personifies Bo as if he were a younger brother, and she imagines what he might be thinking whenever he looks at her a certain way. All of this is a way for Jess to feel like she has company and to connect with someone who understands her—which Bo does.

“Smart, not strong.”

This phrase, taken from her father’s advice, becomes Jess’s motto throughout the novel. She knows herself, and she knows her capabilities. She also understands that by utilizing her ingenuity, she will have a chance at survival.

“Winter is long, but not forever.”

In this metaphor, Jess comments both on the literal fact of winter’s arrival and that it will eventually end, as well as on the winter of her struggles and the many horrible experiences she has had in recent months. She believes that if she just maintains her perseverance, she will eventually see the other side of this darkness.

“I have managed, from time to time, to be satisfied.

I have managed, from time to time, to be content.

Sometimes I think that Bo and I could live here forever.”

In this repetitive statement, Jess reflects on how her outlook toward the wilderness has changed during the time she has spent there. Whereas she once could never have imagined being happy in such a place, she now discovers that she has moments where she feels content and even forgets her desire to leave. The sentiments thus stand as an acknowledgement of her father’s assertion that she would one day grow to love the wilderness. She does not precisely love it, but she does come to a deeper understanding of it.

“The air hums and shivers with the sound of the engine. It works its way down into my breastbone and speeds up my heart until it beats like a hummingbird’s wings.”

In this simile, Jess compares the vibration of her heart to a hummingbird’s wings. She frequently uses comparisons that draw on natural imagery. In this particular passage, the contrast between the nature around and within Jess and the man-made noise of the airplane is designed to strike a harsh, disruptive note in the narrative, foreshadowing impending danger. In this moment, Jess feels herself to be a terrified prey animal, crouched in hiding during the approach of a deadly predator.

“The me I used to be might flinch at killing someone, but the me I am now thinks, It’s just Raph, the way I used to think, It’s just a fish.”

Jess recognizes a change in herself as she reflects on her reaction to killing, and this shift can be seen in the way that she views Raph as more of an animal than a fellow human being. Initially, Jess felt disgusted by the idea of having to kill someone or something, but now, she sees it as merely another task that she must complete in order to survive.

“I want to be empty. But I’m filling up again with fear and with guilt and with feelings I can’t even name.”

Throughout the novel, Jess uses grief and fear to spur herself to new action, but when she is confronted with the reality that she may have killed a human being, she finds herself wrapped up in a natural feeling of guilt. This moment shows that the human side of Jess still exists despite her isolation and experiences, and it reveals that her decision to defend herself still comes with consequences.

“The two of us lock eyes, a winter ghost and a living girl.”

Upon leaving the wilderness, Jess looks back onto the shore and sees a piece of herself that was left behind. She sees it as a clear vision: a ghostly version of herself and a ghost of Bo. The moment stands as a vivid metaphor for the relationship that Jess developed with the wilderness. Although she has escaped this place, part of her will never leave.