How Background and Upbringing Effect a Child, Especially...

In the first few pages of Wild, it describes the present being of strayed but is quickly followed by flashbacks to her past. These flashbacks are a reminder of how the story has reached the point where it opened, on the Pacific Coast Trail (PCT). This book is more than a memoir recounting just her hike up the western coast; it is a story of her life’s journey. It explains how who she presently is directly determined by who she used to be. Each step on the trail is another step forward in her growth. Her challenges in her youth created background to give her strength and independence on the PCT. Her beat the odds mentality instilled in her during her upbringing gave her the will to successfully finish the hike and more importantly find the†¦show more content†¦Instead they explain how he blamed his father’s leaving as the reason for him never being a good person with a good set of ethics and morals. To extent it is fair to say that the morals of one father was d ifferent than the others but as Cheryl Strayed puts it in Wild, â€Å"The father’s job is to teach his children how to be warriors, to give them the confidence to get on the horse to ride into battle when it’s necessary to do so. If you don’t get that from your father, you have to teach yourself.† (Part 4) Yes, there is some responsibility for a father to act appropriately, but it is not a justifiable excuse for a child without a father to say they cannot do the same things as a child with an engaged father. Strayed proved that in her own journey because in taking the Hike on the PCT she was recognizing she could no longer excuse her lapses in character or her lack of paternal care. Strayed wasn’t doing drugs because of her father never being there, she was doing drugs because she felt that was what people without father who cared did. However If Strayed wanted to change she didn’t need a father. By stopping and changing the course of her li fe Strayed proves the defeated Wes wrong and confirms the claim that it was not the actions of another during her up bringing that affected her being a good person, but her reaction to the actions of another in her youth that impacted how she thought and went about life, always