Kate Minorini
Green Section
5/7/15
The Changes Made by a Wild Culture
Cheryl Strayed’s 1995 Wild is an autobiography of the author’s journey hiking the Pacific Crest
Trail. It was made into a movie in 2014 after it was read in Oprah’s Book Club and received numerous
rewards. The movie has many differences from the book. These distinctions reflect America’s changing
cultural beliefs and ideals over the last ten years. The film’s departure from the autobiography was due to
America’s growing faith in female independence, and the increasing sense that a father figure can be a
negative influence on the development of a person.
Women are less reliant on men in Wild the movie because, over the last decade, woman have
become more independent. In the book, Cheryl Strayed is the only women on the trail. She likes it best that
way, and it is one of the things that distinguishes her from the other hikers. Many men are surprised that
Cheryl is able to hike alone in the woods and are surprised when she says she chose to hike alone and
doesn’t have a male partner. Strayed wrote, “I was, after all, what Ed referred to somewhat inaccurately as
the only girl in the woods, alone with a gang of men,” (111), The idea that it is absurd for a women to be
alone in the woods is not reflected in the movie. In the film, Cheryl meets Stacy Johnson on the trail. Stacy,
like Cheryl, is hiking alone. This is a reflection of women’s increasing independence over the last ten years
because it isn’t as crazy an idea to have another women hiking. According to the National Health Statistics
Report, there is a trend that shows a decrease in the rate of women getting married at an early age (See
Appendix 1). With more women being single and independent, there is more opportunity to go on a three
month long adventure, similar to the one that Cheryl took. That is why the movie portrays more women
alone in the woods, alone in life’s wild adventures.
The film version of Wild eliminates the only father figure Strayed had in her life because the role of a
non-biological father in the life of a child has become more associated with negativity and abuse than being
fatherless has. Cheryl has no father figure in Wild the movie. In the book, she is raised by her biological
mother and her non-biological father, who abandoned her when her mother died. Strayed writes, “He loved
us, Eddie said, but life moved on. He was still our father, he claimed, but he did nothing to demonstrate
that,” (153). In the movie version, there is no father figure at all because she and her family had a very bad
relationship with her biological father and Eddie did not exist. Because of this, the movie version of Cheryl
has a different outlook on life. She is more open-minded and accepting and sees the glass half full whereas
in the book she has a resentment toward the men in her life because her only father figure abandons her.
This change is consistent with studies by the Fragile Families Research Brief that show that a nonbiological father is more likely to abuse or abandon a child than a biological father. Consistent with this
increasing distrust for non-biological fathers, the movie version of Wild removed the father entirely,
allowing Cheryl to be perceived as a heathier stronger character.
America’s growing faith in female independence, and the belief that a father can be a negative influence
on the development of a person has shaped the film industries interpretations of books. Cheryl Strayed
wrote a novel about her personal journey on the Pacific Crest Trail. The movie portrayed the journey of not
only Cheryl Strayed but of women everywhere. The differences between the movie and the book reflect
that women as a whole are being perceived as more capable, more adventurous, more self-reliant, and
stronger individuals.
Word Count: 649
Kate Minorini
Green Section
5/7/15
Works Cited
Copen CE, Daniels K, Vespa J, Mosher WD. First marriages in the United States: Data from the 2006–2010
National Survey of Family Growth. National health statistics reports; no 49. Hyattsville, MD:
National Center for Health Statistics. 2012
“CPS Involvement in Families with Social Fathers.” Fragile Families Research Brief No.46. Princeton, NJ and
New York, NY: Bendheim-Thomas Center for Research on Child Wellbeing and Social Indicators Survey
Center, 2010.
Strayed, Cheryl. Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2012. Print.
Wild. Dir. Jean-Marc Vallee. Perf. Reese Witherspoon. Fox Searchlight Pictures, 2014. DVD.
Appendix 1:
The figure shows a trend in the decreasing percentage of women getting married between the age of 15-44.