Untamed

“Unaware that if she remembered her wildness – just for a moment – she could tear those zookeepers to shreds.”

Doyle reflects on Tabitha’s unearthed power. She feels a kinship and connection to Tabitha and recognizes the greater, innate potential within her. Doyle sees through the façade of power and containment represented by the zookeepers and senses a connection to the same façades of power in her own life and the lives of women in general. 

“She’d say, ‘Something’s off about my life. I feel restless and frustrated. I have this hunch that everything was supposed to be more beautiful than this. I imagine fenceless, wide-open savannas. I want to run and hunt and kill. I want to sleep under an ink-black silent sky filled with stars. It’s all so real I can taste it.’” 

Doyle imagines a conversation with Tabitha where Tabitha shares her innermost frustrations with the contained life she leads. Doyle forges a connection between Tabitha and herself and all women who are left frustrated and dissatisfied with the lives they lead. In this imagined conversation, Doyle sees the potential for a more beautiful life than the contained and restricted one inhabited by Tabitha and most women. 

“You are a goddamn cheetah.” 

This is Doyle’s reply to her imagined conversation with Tabitha. However, Doyle is also speaking metaphorically when she says “cheetah.” She speaks not only to Tabitha, who actually is a cheetah, but to all women, including herself. Doyle repeats this mantra throughout her memoir in moments of self-doubt as a reminder of her powerful potential.