93 pages • 3 hours read
Crabbe
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Journal 15-Journal 17Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Journal 15 Summary
When the first frost of the year comes, Mary tells Crabbe that it is time to make plans for his return to civilization. He tells Mary that he loves her and wants to stay with her, but she tells him this is impossible. She also refuses to return with him to civilization. She tells him that she loves him, but Crabbe understands that her love is only platonic, not romantic. Two days later, they set out on their last trek together, a raid on a nearby, deserted compound that has a kitchen shack with food stores Mary needs to survive the winter. Their plan is that Crabbe will leave for town from there. When they arrive at the compound, however, they discover that someone is there.
Journal 16 Summary
The raid on the compound proves to be a disaster from beginning to end. When they arrive at the compound Mary and Crabbe see four drunk, raucous men. Crabbe and Mary split up, with Crabbe staying behind with their packs and Mary heading to the kitchen shack to get the food stores. Unfortunately, Mary is captured by the men when she is discovered by a dog, and they drag her into their cabin.
After a few minutes of shock, Crabbe comes up with a plan and springs into action. He runs into the kitchen shack and grabs raw meat and pepper. He also sets a fire inside of the kitchen shack. This distraction draws the men away long enough for Crabbe to rescue Mary. He finds her tied up and with her breasts exposed where the men have ripped her clothes. Mary seems deeply distraught, so Crabbe uses the compass to lead them away. He uses the meat, pepper, and water to get the dogs off their tracks and eventually leads them some distance from the compound.
Journal 17 Summary
Although it is dark and cold, and thus dangerous to travel, Mary insists that they continue, an idea Crabbe doesn’t like. He also notices that Mary cycles between being completely out of it to being very upset. Despite his better judgment, Crabbe agrees to continue traveling. They climb a very high ridge, and Mary finally asks them to stop for the night. They start a fire at the flat top of the ridge, and Crabbe heads off to find more wood. When he comes back, Mary has jumped or fallen off the ridge and is dead at the bottom of it. To keep wild animals from eating her remains, he makes a pyre and burns her body, then returns to their camp.
Journal 15-Crabbe’s Journal 17 Analysis
These entries in the novel represent a test of all that Crabbe has learned. The nature of the test and his ability to survive it, even when Mary is not, signal his coming of age. Although Crabbe is aware that he would probably be able to survive in the wilderness without Mary, he shows great strength of character when he rescues Mary. He is able to rescue Mary because he overcomes his initial fear and because he is able to be resourceful, traits that he did not have when he first came to the wilderness. The most significant elements of this test for survival are that he is forced to take the lead and think for both himself and another person. While he insists that it is Mary’s compass that kept them on track (131), his new maturity and self-sufficiency prove to be the crucial factors.
Despite his decisive actions, Mary dies. The cause of her death is somewhat ambiguous. The implication of her torn clothes when Crabbe rescues her is that she has been sexually assaulted (129), a traumatizing experience, and her state of mind—disturbed and distraught—might indicate that her death is a suicide that she completes by jumping off the ridge. If Mary is a highly idealized figure, a goddess, as Crabbe sometimes calls her, her suicide may well be a response to a violation of her power and autonomy. In addition, her decision to take her husband’s life before fleeing to the wilderness demonstrates an uncompromising attitude towards the conditions under which a person can live in accordance with their values and an intolerance for accepting a life that denies one autonomy. On the other hand, her death may well have been a simple accident caused by the cold, darkness, and fatigue. Either way, her death signals the moment when Crabbe stops being her student. Her death drives home this new self-sufficiency. Crabbe is alone in wilderness.
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